Out of the seven issues in this study being considered, the Canadian Bar Association's number one would be reducing obstacles to entry into Canada for partners and spouses of Canadians through training and process improvements, increased consistency and transparency in decision-making, and greater access to appeals. The fact is that we treat spouses of Canadians worse than spouses of foreign nationals in immigrating to Canada.
Our number two would be children, relaxing the criteria and reducing processing times for the sponsorship of dependent children and adopted children in order to take their best interests into account.
It's very hard to put this at number three, but it is greater certainty for applicants and their family members, and Canadian sponsors, by implementing consistent service standards and processing times across all these offices; so overall system efficiency, certainty that enables people to plan and not be feeling like they have no control and they're at the whim of the processing of the Canadian government.