Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank all the committee members for allowing me to speak before you today. I am especially happy to be here in person. My name is Claire Launay and I am the president of an organization called Le Québec c'est nous aussi. We are a non-pro

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for the question. Quebec is holding an election right now. Immigration is a very sensitive subject. Because we are talking about an area of provincial responsibility, I will not answer your question. We have, however, noticed over the last two years that IRCC did not p

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We believe that you could start by giving a substantial boost to IRCC's budget. The annual budget for IRCC is not at all in keeping with the important role the department plays in the Canadian economy. We have seen some efforts and we have noticed that the department will get ove

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We face the same challenges that immigrants do. All the members of our organization, Le Québec c'est nous, are also immigrants. It's difficult to communicate with someone at IRCC in general. That is our reality. It's hard to get any answers given the lack of transparency at the d

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. We think that is a necessary step. There are many systemic problems with IRCC that should be studied by an independent party, such as an ombudsman, so that concrete solutions can be proposed.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Basically, it would be a unit within IRCC that would be exclusively responsible for managing humanitarian crises, and it would have full-time resources dedicated to these crises. Each time that such a crisis arises, such as the ones in Afghanistan or in Ukraine, resources would n

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On many occasions. In fact, the absurd has become the norm. I mentioned earlier the need to repeatedly file applications for a work permit while waiting for decision on a permanent residency application. That is particularly absurd. We are talking about people who, by definition,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We see delays in all categories of immigration applications, whether it's permanent or temporary visas. That said, because new programs have been launched, as Ms. Kwan stated earlier, we also see some files being pushed through extremely rapidly, whereas two million applications

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we receive numerous messages from the office in Dakar, which is experiencing a real problem in processing volumes. Their volumes are much lower than the average. We are talking today about efficiency and processing times. I would also like to say that we do not want any imp

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is indeed the risk. It is precisely because of this risk that we seek more transparency, so that we could know exactly what algorithm Chinook uses, how the system works and what directives are given to the officers. We also need an independent party who would be charged wit

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I just want to say that we are in dire straits. Two million files are waiting to be processed in a country that has fewer than 40 million inhabitants. That's really embarrassing. I see it as an opportunity for you to look at our problems and find solutions. I encourage you to be

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. I think we should absolutely prioritize files that have been the longest in the backlog. These people have chosen Canada for a reason, and we definitely need them. We need to address those files first. We were talking about absurdities earlier, and that's one of them. If yo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, for sure. I mean, I'm not going to decide what criteria should be lifted, but I think this is something that we should definitely be looking at.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. Western Africa in general has seen worrying levels of rejections. I think IRCC has the numbers, but between 70% to above 80% are rejections, specifically for study permit applications. Obviously, because these are francophone countries, most of the students were bound to go