Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. Their selection grid is to some extent similar to ours. As I said, they have a very strong temporary worker movement and they allow these people to apply for permanent residence from within the country, to have just permanent residents. As a matter of fact, most of the skilled immigrants in Australia first enter as students and temporary workers.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They have a lot of the same criteria. These criteria, in simple language, are like trying to predict the likelihood of success. There's a lot of research that has looked at how good these criteria will be in predicting settlement success of immigrants, and the experience of Canada is not different from that of Australia or many other countries--that, for example, the knowledge of the official language is one of your best predictors.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. I've always tried to answer the questions to the best of my knowledge and what I see as the facts.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know what the current rules are; I can speak about what the rules were.... Are you talking about coming in as an immigrant or as a temporary worker?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As a temporary worker, normally they're coming for a major production.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If they're coming for a key role in a major production, they would be exempt from the labour validation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The rationale is as follows: if you look at cities that have become major shooting places—Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal--over the years, by allowing these productions, their key actors, and some of their key people to come, you've seen an emerging cinema industry where some of our cameramen in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto are now some of the best in the world, and they shoot films elsewhere as well, so it has created economic benefits.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you have a Hollywood production, by bringing in this Australian or American actor, the benefits for the rest of the production that would derive to Canadians are so great that it's worth doing that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the regulations and in the exemptions that are in the schedules to the regulations, you have the description of what is applied to these situations in terms of rules.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Are we talking about immigrants now?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For temporary workers there's no point system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It all starts with the premise that everybody who is going to come to work here in theory requires both an employment authorization and a validation that there's an actual need for that person there. Then there's the list of exemptions, such as the one for actors that you described before.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Some of the regulations made under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act must be tabled to the standing committee for discussion purposes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First of all, you have to remember that the point system is only one of the criteria used for immigration purposes. There are also the family and refugee categories. There are always movements of temporary workers, of seasonal workers. In answer to your question about policy adjustments, I would have to say that any country with an immigration program regularly makes adjustments, most likely every four or five years, to respond to changes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Various mechanisms apply. From an administrative standpoint, the minister can adjust the passing grade. New regulations can be made. Legislative changes can be brought in if the legislation is no longer deemed adequate. Various options are possible, depending on what you are trying to achieve.