Citizenship and Immigration committee  Subject to information to the contrary, I would say that medical reasons do not come up often, because the people who apply already know how their health is, barring surprises. I would say that in 25 of the 29 cases I'm sure it related to proving the source of funds.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have to be careful when it comes to Quebec's work. Unlike other provinces that have their own administrative agreement programs with the federal government, Quebec has its own immigration department, immigration offices outside Canada and specialized counsellors. Their level of expertise may be higher, which means that due diligence is higher than in the other provinces.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know how many years we've had a rule in Canada where about 60% of immigration is on the economic side, and 40% is on the humanitarian side. Do we have to change the ratio? That's a decision, you know--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. My name is Marc Audet and I am a vice-president at Fiducie Desjardins, in the Immigrant Investor Program. I have worked in that program for over 15 years. My presentation will deal with processing times for the immigrant investor class, for both the Quebec program and the federal program.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Entrepreneurs fall under a program that is being phased out.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have statistics on investors.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Unfortunately, that is not my area of expertise. I specialize in immigrant investors. Imran might be able to address that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think it is actually the mandate of any CIC office around the world to do promotion. Actually, we asked them a couple of times to come to us to explain and so on. It's more that each province will do that. Each province tries to attract immigrants on their own--such as Ontario and Vancouver--through their own strategies.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It comes from their Web site.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Because it is very difficult to meet the criteria. These people come here and have to start a business. They are coming to a new country. We, Canadians, have difficulty starting a business. Imagine what it's like for somebody who comes from abroad and who does not know how our legislation or accounting system works.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There used to be nine business immigration centres around the world with specialized people. Hong Kong is a good place because they do a lot of investor class applications. The problem is that in Accra or Pretoria or whatever, if the guys see an investor file like this, with all the financial statements, and they have another skills application file like this, that's a part too.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It was 2003.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  A couple of things happened. For example, we used to have the business provincial nominee program. It was cut last year, and some of those applicants switched to the Quebec or federal immigrant investor program. You have some emerging countries too. As you know, China is by far the biggest provider, and they have a new millionaire every day.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, it's afterward.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Many investors are like university students. When someone wants to go to university, they apply to three or four universities, such as York, McGill and Simon Fraser. You need to understand where these people are coming from. Our immigrant investors are not from Europe or the Americas; they are from Asia and the Middle East.