Citizenship and Immigration committee  Monsieur Lauzon, if I could just add, the president of the University of Toronto today is in China trying to drum up business. Your point about the best, I think, is really important, and I am entirely in agreement with Professor Hamdullahpur. In my experience as deputy minister of the environment, when I was in Korea we were trying to press them to buy Canadian product.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the article, I never spoke about immigration. I was actually speaking in general terms. As far as visas are concerned, I could mention the role that evidence plays in implementing policies or programs. Has the program been a success? We could do an evaluation and determine if it was a success or not, and improve the system based on the suggestions of that evaluation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Honestly I don't think that it would be useful. I disagree with Mr. Collacott. He spoke about a process of decision review, of checking exits and of an entire system that would make Canada a hostile country for immigrants. I don't agree with that at all.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is difficult to know if our criteria are too strict. I don't know how to determine what the best balance would be. How do you determine what the optimum balance is? How many terrorists should we let in that's going to prove to be optimal? Probably the politics of this suggests zero.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Let me say we've made great progress. I think the five to ten years is a big deal. In response to Mr. McCallum's question, I understand that in the U.S., for a temporary residence visa, they actually do an interview for 100% of people coming in. We don't. So we have an efficiency there that's probably desirable.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I just don't think you want to—this is odd from a former bureaucrat—put in place a new bureaucratic review process if we already have the possibility of reapplying.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Very briefly, I think you have to remember that when we get visitors coming, they bring hands and they bring minds. While it may look like they are supplanting Canadian jobs, they are bringing the possibility of creating Canadian jobs. We shouldn't lose sight of that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  But as well as the Federal Court process they have the ability to reapply, so they will end.... I understand that the administrative practice is that a different visa officer would review the second application, so that in a sense is already an appeal process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Right, and if you've gotten rejected and the problem is that you haven't satisfied a particular requirement, you can show that well, as a matter of fact, you didn't notice that I did have a permanent residence in...wherever.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's true, but they also can reapply.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With great difficulty. But they weren't illegally staying; they were legally staying. In fact, right now if you read the U.K. press—and I'm just back from London on Sunday—the dominant issue is about Bulgarian and Romanian visitors who are taking jobs from potential U.K. workers.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Actually, I don't. I don't know enough about it to make that judgment. If you had the officers from the department here, they might be able to respond. The other point I would make is that Mr. Goldstein's point about process improvements is very important. I know when the officials were before the committee in June, they talked about the online application system and all of that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Indeed. I have just a modest window on that. When I was in London, Mr. Orr, who appeared before the committee here, who now is assistant deputy minister responsible for operations, was at the time the head of the immigration section in London. So we had worked together. All I know or don't know may come from Mr.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, let's take the issue before the committee at the moment. There was an evaluation done of the temporary visa program. The department has responded to the evaluation. It's identified improvements that it can make. All of that is the kind of use of evidence that I'm speaking about.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm going to give you a very general and non-specific answer. I've been out of Ottawa now for 11 years, so it would be presumptuous of me to try to lecture, as a professor might, the committee. I would note that the quality of the professional public service, the professional non-partisan public service—and that's why I made my opening remarks as I did, pointing to the fact that I had served different party governments—is actually very highly professional indeed.