Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Typically, the adoption process is a two-stage process. So there is work that's done at the provincial and territorial levels in order to ascertain if a family is in fact eligible to adopt. So there's that work that goes on. There is also, then, CIC's responsibility f

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They do play a very important role; they're the first part of the process, when it comes to adoptions. We've been working with provinces and territories very closely throughout the Operation Stork process in order to make sure that all the paperwork...as my colleague said, all th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's precisely the challenge, I think, when we're facing the situation in Haiti. What we did was work directly with the Haitian government to get approval and authority to proceed with those adoptions. It was necessary to have that exchange of information and the authority to m

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would depend on the individual situation of the student. Some of them may in fact have off-campus work permits, which would allow them to work while they're in Canada. With respect to—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say two things. One is that it wouldn't necessarily fall in CIC's ambit--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, indeed, I understand. I am not aware of a specific program or initiative that is under way at this point. That does not mean there isn't work going on, or at least some exploratory work. I am aware that there have been several groups and organizations of a non-governmental

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There is no difference between the two.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the notice of intent and the document that was published in the Canada Gazette in August, there is an indication of a possibility of money for start-up funds. No specific amount is indicated, but there is certainly that possibility for people...to give an idea of what may be r

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, you have understood this correctly. The new approach that's outlined in the legislation is basically focused on expanding the reach of the government's powers, so it does expand the coverage from pre-application stage right through any kind of advice that's given in the pr

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say that what we are trying to accomplish with this approach is both a continuing commitment to self-regulation of the industry and a broader and more expansive federal government oversight of the organization.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I might add as well that in this approach there is a new criminal offence that has been created. Those penalties are in place to protect the public interest and to protect the integrity of the immigration scheme and system. So I guess I would say in summary that we looked at a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the deliberations on this, a decision was taken about an approach. Certainly time is one of the factors. We would be essentially starting from scratch if we were creating a statutory body.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would assume at least that. And in terms of cost, I don't think I would be able to give you an estimate. But certainly it would be substantially greater than what we're looking at right now.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  At this point even saying that it may only be two or three years may be a shorter timeframe than we might be thinking of. The oversight function of the federal government in the context of the bill, if adopted, provides authority for the minister to actually seek information from

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On June 12 we published in the Canada Gazette the notice of intent to proceed with this process, and we solicited public comments on the considerations that were outlined in the first notice of intent. Having had some time and having looked at the input we received through that p