Citizenship and Immigration committee  For the call centre itself?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We're consistently making changes. A few years ago, I guess one of the decisions was so that we could focus on the complex cases, we made a decision that we were not going to...if the case was still within service standards within processing times—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is correct, and that's why sometimes it's frustratingly slow to make a change.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Chair, I don't think anyone on the panel here is in a position to respond with regard to how exactly that works and what the mechanics of it are.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I fully agree. I believe the mechanism is in place, but I simply do not know what it is or the details and mechanics of it. I think it's fair to say, though, that the sort of incident you have brought to our attention—thank you very much—is a rarity.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think that overall we try to be quite forthcoming, and especially we're learning that it's valuable for us to be more forthcoming as well. There's real business value from our point of view, but certainly far better client service as well to provide as much information as we can.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Vice-Chair, every time a change is made to the website, there is a considerable amount of work done to ensure that there is consistency in all areas of the website. However, it is a huge website and occasionally things do get missed and it's unfortunate when that happens. When something is brought to our attention, we certainly fix it quickly, but on the other hand, I think in the vast number of cases, we do get it right and it is consistent right across all aspects of the website.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First of all, we're looking at the number of calls they're handling and at how long they're handling them. All case calls are taped so we can do a playback on them. We do quality assurance on all calls that come into the call centre and so on. I think there are very stringent controls on the agents and what's going on there.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I did not say that. I said that's one of the factors, and there's a number of factors that we're looking at.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The department has made considerable efforts to try to get more information online, and to get that same information even for those who've applied on paper, so that if they go online and create an account, they can get information about their application. What we have to do—and I think that's a fair comment—is give better information online and feed more.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We can look at it and try to see what we can do on that. Sometimes, it's quite true, we do not know how long it's going to take to complete that application, and that may be part of the situation. I don't know if any of my colleagues have anything to add on this.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll let Ms. Lattimore speak about the call centre in a little more detail, but I think we have made major changes there since August, and they're starting to pay off. They're not for all lines of business. We started off with the family class and the success there is being rolled out to other areas, but a couple of things are happening.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Vice-Chair, yes, there certainly has been some very positive work done on the spousal project, and it has been done largely through a tiger team. It has also been done through a variety of other inputs into that, including the work that was done with OCAD U, with other people influencing things and so on, but it's been very positive.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On the issue of parents and grandparents, as you know, the intake has been increased and the level space has been increased. Likewise, we have significant level space for live-in caregivers. That is going to be the biggest positive step forward in those two categories.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Vice-Chair, indeed all members of the executive team are very conscious that client service is key, but yes, in September 2015 we did appoint one person, one senior executive responsible for client service, Ms. Lattimore.