Madam Chair, let me start by saying that recently we have seen a situation developing in Cuba that prompted us and our partners at Global Affairs Canada not to have a footprint in Havana. There where some health-related issues that we had to react to for the safety and security of Canadians abroad. We moved our work to a location outside of Cuba, which is Mexico.
Let me mention this, Madam Chair. When dealing with situations where they have to leave their country for biometric testing, in case they are applying for permanent residency or anything else, we have tried to mitigate the risk of their having to travel twice, by converging the medical and the biometric trips into one, so that they don't have to go twice. That provides them with an opportunity so that they only travel once.
Obviously, we have another Cuba-specific issues that we are trying to address. We do not have a panel physician who can provide the immigration medical exam in Cuba. We are in the advanced stages of finalization of that panel physician. Once that is done, the people from Cuba will not need to travel abroad and will be able to get the services in Cuba.