Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, everyone.
You are probably aware that your “C” rating is the fourth-lowest rating of all the departments, which means that there is still a great deal of work to be done. You indicated that you will be submitting another report to us in March 2011. I hope some significant changes will have been made by then.
We quite often deal with immigration issues in our riding offices. In many cases, people complain to us rather than to you. You say you received six complaints, but that is practically impossible. In our ridings, we get complaints from people who cannot get services in their official language. Often, it is services in French, obviously.
I was rather disappointed to hear the message for clients that says that all your lines are busy, the call cannot be transferred to a call centre agent and the least busy days are Thursday and Friday.
That means that people cannot call you on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday because you are too busy. A francophone who is trying to reach you will not likely get an answer. You are going to have to give us an explanation, sir, because it is rather disturbing to hear that sort of telephone message. It implies that a person with an extremely important and urgent case will not be able to get service in his language because Thursday and Friday are the least busy days.
Explain that to me.