Mr. Chair, there's no doubt that there has been an increase in the processing times for spousal applications. I think the minister referred to three main elements to try to bring those times down: money, which has been given to the department to try to work on this; levels space, which is critically important in this; and efficiencies. I think you are already seeing a change from June 2015 to June 2016 in processing times overall—not necessarily for Beijing in particular but overall—which have come down from 18 to 16 months in the overseas context, and from 26 to 22 months for the in-Canada cases, and we are hoping to bring that down significantly over the coming year.
On October 4th, 2016. See this statement in context.