Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister, thank you for joining us again. We will spend a lot of time with you this week.
My first question is about people who are waiting for a decision on their permanent residence and who have submitted an application in Quebec under the economic immigration class.
According to the government's open data, the application threshold has not been reached in Quebec. Close to 12,000 applications have been processed, out of the total 26,000 applications. Many people are saying that their application for permanent residence is pending owing to very long processing times for work permits. Many have lost their job and have been unable to find another one. Others want to change their work environment, but they cannot do so.
Has the department considered the possibility of prioritizing the processing of permanent residence files of individuals who were already in Canada when the COVID-19 pandemic began?