What needs to be done, as you mentioned, Mr. El-Khoury, is that the couple needs to provide evidence of the genuine nature of their relationship. When there are doubts, this can delay the process and it can take even longer than the current length of time for the application to be processed and the decision to be finalized.
Before the pandemic, the service standard for spousal sponsorship was 12 months. It's currently 16 months for inland applications submitted within Canada, and it's currently 20 months for applications submitted outside of Canada, as I mentioned in my remarks. Earlier this year the minister made an announcement providing an overview of the efforts the department is taking to modernize the system. In that announcement was a promise that the government would bring the service standard back to 12 months for spousal sponsorship within this year.