Citizenship and Immigration committee  The inventory of family class cases in Damascus—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, I have the figures for all family class cases.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll have to provide you that breakdown later, but there are a total of 246 persons, constituting 180 applications presently in process at the office in Damascus. Those are family class applications.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's for Iraqis sponsored under the family class, where the relatives of the people in Canada are in Syria, Jordan, or Lebanon.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can tell you the inventory in Damascus of family class cases. I'm afraid I don't have an inventory number for CPC Mississauga, but I can tell you that what we're essentially doing in Mississauga is to expedite sponsorship applications for Iraqis when they are received. In other

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For Iraqi citizens, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I haven't been involved in communicating with stakeholders on this issue.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I can tell you additional staff are currently in Damascus, working to help us deal with the number of cases that have been received there. I don't have with me today the total number of what we call temporary duty officers who have been in Damascus in the past year,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The processing time for family class cases in Damascus at the moment is such that 80% of them are finalized within 10 months. I don't have a 2006 figure to compare with the 2007 figure. Again, it's something we could provide.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I certainly would confirm we are trying to reduce our processing times.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say we are trying to reduce inventories, especially of family class. We are trying to process spouses and children within the six-month timeframe that the government—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not able to comment on how the U.S. processes its immigration applications.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Not points. We don't use a points system in assessing any refugee, whether they are referred by the UNHCR or are sponsored. What we look at is whether or not that person has a well-founded fear of persecution, and whether or not they meet the other requirements for being resettle

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can certainly tell the committee, Mr. Chair, that in May this year we issued instructions to all visa officers to take into consideration UNHCR's advice that refugees from central and southern Iraq, that is, not from the Kurdish area in the north, were to be considered refugees

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Karygiannis, you're characterizing the situation in a way I have no knowledge of.