Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's not done in that manner. We would get a levels space for the entire category regardless of from where those applications are. We would start processing those on a first-come, first-served basis regardless—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's correct.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I became aware of it this afternoon, in fact, just before I walked over.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The basis for the minimum necessary income is very much based on work done by Statistics Canada. We take their lead on this for what the cost of living is, and how it should be applied to the family class.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The methodology does vary somewhat in terms of whether someone is in a large urban area, which tends to be more expensive than in a smaller community. These sorts of things are taken into consideration in the work done by Statistics Canada. It really is the methodology of Statistics Canada that we follow.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, our view at this time is that the current framework very much is presented in a clear and transparent manner. It is very objective in the way it is applied, and there is no consideration at this time of moving from that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. There are a couple of things here. Certainly for the Canadian officers who go abroad to a particular office, it is their obligation to become very familiar with the local circumstances. In some places the training is very structured. The most obvious example of that is in Delhi where they have the so-called Delhi academy.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I said, particularly in India the training is very sophisticated in terms of local culture, and we do have a large number of locally engaged officers who are Indian helping us to assess these applications. Certainly, there is a great deal of cultural sensitivity and awareness of what the local cultural practices are.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Generally it is first-come, first-served within the various categories, but we deal with each category in a slightly different way. Mostly it is dictated by the levels space that is available in any given year for that particular category.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We're very conscious of that. There is serious work being done to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They are not yet complete, but they are all in process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, we're making very real efforts to address that one, because it's not something that is beneficial for anyone concerned. Because of a new medical process and electronic medical processing, we're able to process them much faster, which means we don't require them at the beginning of the application.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I will turn to my policy colleague, but in the first instance, it is important to recognize that there is the proposal to move forward both in terms of siblings within the express entry program, which is broadening that aspect of family, and then also within the family class itself of raising the age of dependency from under 19 to under 22.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can't give you a precise timing on that, but it's in the works and, as you know, it was one of the mandate commitments.