Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would like to suggest that as you continue with your hearings, I'm sure you are aware there's an NGO and government committee on which there are some elected sponsorship agreement-holder representatives. They sit with representatives from the department, and I would encourage y

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In reference to your first point, I wanted to emphasize that regarding the private sponsorship program, the target is between 3,000 and 4,000 people a year. The government program is 7,500. That's roughly 10,000 spots in Canada a year. We would love to be able to respond to thes

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Can you clarify whose group you're talking about?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're talking about other problems in addition to the full plate we have given you. I would like to suggest it would be good to look at why security background checks take so long. Another one would be what the impact is of the social assistance bar on family reunification.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would like to suggest that MPs work with sponsorship agreement holders and sponsoring communities to understand what the problems are in the system and to increase awareness of the program within their communities. If we could work together, I think we could increase interest i

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for raising that question, because when I referred to the concern about the perception of the program by visa officers and CIC, CIC has indicated that they are concerned that this is what we're doing, using this program to bring family members in through the back door.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. Has anyone here been a member of a sponsoring group? Has anyone waited for over three years for a family to arrive? People get very excited about this program. They respond because they know that someone's in need, and then they wait. Very often, as a sponsorship a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would like to address family reunification. It's important to recognize that the process does not finish for refugees once they are granted refugee status. They still need to get permanent residence and in many cases reunite with family members from whom they have been separate

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The private sponsorship of refugees program is one of the issues you've identified as of interest to you, and also of high priority. It's also of high priority to the CCR. Following are some reasons why you should care about the private sponsorship of refugees program. It's the