Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you ever so much, Minister, for appearing before this committee. I'm sure I speak on behalf of many Canadians in congratulating you for the energy that you have brought to the task at hand. It has been incredible to see your approach to incoming refugees from Syria and to restoring health benefits to refugees, and also your comments today that we will be seeing changes to Bill C-24.
I'm sure that everyone on this committee will agree that the Canada we have today is really the result of the entrepreneurial spirit of many who have come here to live their lives. Immigration is critical to job creation and economic growth for the middle class. The fact is that Canada needs immigration to maintain our population levels, and we do have an aging population and Canadians obviously are living longer lives.
Given all of that, despite all the foregoing, Canadians have been deeply concerned during the past decade about application processing times for various streams of immigration, as you alluded to in your opening comments. To illustrate the point, the processing time for citizenship applications doubled over the past decade. To take another example, which is something that I know you attach a lot of significance to, family reunification processing times are up by 70% for spouses and children since 2007, and then an even a more staggering 500% for parents and grandparents.
Given your invitation that this committee assist in seeing how those timelines can be streamlined, I was wondering if, after having had your consultations with senior civil servants in your department, you could provide us with your early initial impressions as to how the system can be improved.
Thank you.