Citizenship and Immigration committee  I suppose there are a number of variations on this. One would be presenting incorrect information. The second thing might be fraudulent documents of some sort or another, be they fraudulent bank statements, or fraudulent educational statements. There are a variety of different things there.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, Mr. Chair, those reasons are very much taken into consideration. Under those circumstances and under those very compelling family reasons, visa officers will also consider the option of a temporary resident permit. In other words, that would allow someone to travel who wouldn't meet the normal requirements of a visa but for compelling reasons should be allowed to go forward, and a permit may be issued.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, those are very much taken into consideration. It goes to the argument, which I think is very important, of why we have visa officers abroad. Visa officers are in those communities, and part of their job is to get to know the local culture and the way things are presented so they understand what is presented to them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For the TRV, the temporary resident visa, with all three categories of visitors, students, and workers, we issue approximately 1.9 million visas every year. The vast majority of those 35 million would be people from the United States coming back and forth.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's quite small.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we're not in a phase yet.... For those countries where there is a visa requirement, we still have a paper counterfoil that has to go into the passport. The benefit with electronic visas and with our new GCMS system as well, though, is if someone is traveling, for instance someone from Armenia travelling maybe in the United States, they need to get that counterfoil put in.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That would be entries into Canada every year.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have a two-part answer to that question. Yes, Damascus was also closed, which was a very major office for us. It was basically the hub in the Middle East, so we've had to open Ankara. Ankara has always been there, but it's become a very major office now. We have moved our operations for the Middle East to Turkey.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In southeast Asia, no, there were no offices closed there. Through the budget review exercise last year, we did close 10 visa offices overseas. Most of them were in the United States, but there were some other offices as well. In Asia, the visa office in Tokyo and the office in Seoul were also closed, and Kuala Lumpur.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  A visa officer has a variety of functions. First of all, I'd say that a visa officer would not necessarily be doing only visitor visas. These are also officers who would be looking at permanent resident applications. They would be reporting on the situation in a particular country.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Since December, applicants have had the opportunity to use an e-application to apply electronically. This is still sort of in its initial stages, but it has huge opportunities for us in the longer term. What it allows the applicant to do is to submit everything online, scan any documents, and submit those along with the application, so no paper is submitted.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The number is very low, but I think in 2011 it was 64 cases, something like that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I see a couple of points there. I don't have the precise statistic on the American refusal versus acceptance rate through the interview process. I do not have that available. We could try to get it, but I'm not sure. It would take a little bit of work to get that. We have looked at interviews.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We've been forced to use those generic letters. I think we would all prefer to be able to give far more precise information, but that would be an extraordinarily time-consuming process. Given the volumes that we have, we've had to go to a generic letter, which tries to give as good an idea as possible of the reasons and the reasoning behind the decision.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would just say that for those who do reapply, there's a 48% success rate. In other words, I think often what has been offered is helpful, because many people do know what they have to supply subsequently.