Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.
I'm going to ask the question of any of the witnesses who want to answer.
As we all know, COVID-19 has impacted the level of difficulty that the department encounters when dealing with immigration cases. Although the state of operations at IRCC has changed drastically since the beginning of the pandemic, shifts to remote work coupled with system modernization have increased departmental capacity from 38% to 90%. This heightened capacity will allow the government to address the processing of new streams adequately.
Can you please tell us if there is a widespread fear amongst would-be applicants in Hong Kong that IRCC will have trouble processing other claims? If so, how do you think we should address this?