Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was saying earlier that it's really difficult to put an economic number on something like cultural and social contribution—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Kingsley. The time is up for Ms. Kwan. We will now have two minutes for Mr. Hallan, and then end the panel with two minutes for Mr. Dhaliwal. Mr. Hallan, please begin. You have two minutes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Chair. I think that increasing the number of insurance companies has the potential to reduce prices, but there are a lot of questions around whether opening it up to foreign insurance providers would result in that. It's a really complex issue, and, as I was saying earlier, we can look at setting criteria for companies that would meet those criteria and make sure that we're protecting clients.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Nonetheless, the basic.... Yes, excuse me.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's correct, Chair. There is a higher likelihood of fraud. We would be very concerned about that and we would need to develop really stringent criteria around all of these issues and ensure that there is very close, ongoing monitoring of any of thousands of companies that might be interested in being designated through such a model.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would definitely take quite a bit of time to make sure that we get it right and to make sure that clients are protected from fraudulent actors, from possible companies that may not actually pay in time or may not pay up front. It would take quite a bit of time to determine all of that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for your question. As you say, all parties agree on the principles of the bill, and so do we. The purpose of this bill is to facilitate family reunification for extended periods of time. The current super visa already allows that. It's valid for 10 years, and it allows parents or grandparents to enter the country for an initial period of two years and then stay on.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I was saying, the super visa already does that. it already has some—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I said earlier, changes to departmental instructions in a context similar to this one could take a few weeks.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I believe you could.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Chair. To my knowledge, we have not asked provinces and territories about making their public health insurance regimes available to super visa holders. It is something we could do. To my knowledge, it has not been done.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is very difficult to quantify social and cultural benefits, but there's no question that there are economic, social, and cultural benefits to having parents and grandparents reunited with their children and grandchildren. The super visa does that currently, and it takes into account that balance of having longer reunification stays with some criteria that don't apply to a regular, shorter six-month visa.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The requirement to have a medical exam only applies to the initial application. When applicants send in their first request for a super visa, that is when a medical exam is requested. If and when applicants want to renew their application, that medical exam does not need to be redone.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Currently, because the super visa requires the private health insurance to be provided by a Canadian provider, the integrity is ensured essentially by the fact that these insurance providers are regulated within the Canadian system. We know them, we know that they're regulated and that we can trust them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sorry, did you say “access provincial insurance”?