Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, in some cases that happens. In Manila, of course, we have specific challenges. There's no divorce in the Philippines. Some people were married early in their lives and have separated. But on paper, that marriage is still valid. Then they remarry 10 years later. That's a prob

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Are you talking about the spouse who is sponsoring?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, the provincial nominee is one category that has a priority attached to it, so we do process those very quickly. We had an increased number of applications. At one point, we feared that we would be developing a backlog, but then our target was increased to match the number

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I mentioned that many people separate. They marry young, and then they separate, but they never divorce because they cannot. It's possible to annul the marriage, but it's a very costly and lengthy procedure so most people don't bother. It is an issue when they remarry, but strict

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think David and Rénald have talked about that, so I will just echo their comments. GCMS will allow us to very easily reallocate work to where the resources are. There are some other features. The group processing feature David mentioned will be a very useful tool to reduce pro

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we do see a lot of parents and grandparents applying for visitor visas while they're waiting for their permanent resident applications. By and large we facilitate and issue the visas.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For example, a few years ago, in certain regions, we were faced with cases of fraud. We therefore put in place measures to sift them out. Given that we did not know the extent of the problem, we set up a systematic document verification process. After two years, we reviewed what

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Last year, we received 20 applications, of which 5 were from Quebec. However, approximately 100 people have indeed been on our list for more than three years. Investor class applicants are not priority cases, except for Quebec.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I was saying, we have priority cases to which we devote our resources. We work with set targets and priorities.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honoured to be here today before the committee. My name is Micheline Aucoin, and I am the Immigration Program Manager in Manila, and Area Director for Southeast Asia. I understand that you have a particular interest in processing times in the famil