Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would be happy to provide information to the committee on exactly how consent is collected. Often in the case of immigration files—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the issue is what is actually tracked as data within our system. Certainly when a phone call is received—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We track consent, but we don't necessarily add—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We don't necessarily add up all of the calls and who made which call on behalf of whom, in a way that we could provide data on that to a committee.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not sure that I'm following the question.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I regret that the member does not get same-day service when she calls our line. We endeavour to provide as good a service as we possibly can.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think there's a difference between consent provided on individual questions versus collected data that could be tabled at a committee. I think that the member has asked for data, which is not necessarily collected in that way. I would be happy, however, to look at whatever data

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have a number of ways in which the minister and MPs are able to seek information on individual cases. We have an MP line through which MPs may call and ask the department for information on particular cases that are brought to them by their constituents, and we provide informa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  When we get requests through our MP line, we do not track which MPs are asking for requests, and when we deal with cases we address, we provide case information on a case-by-case basis. However, I do not believe that information is available or kept by the department.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we think this outreach has been very helpful. One thing we saw—particularly the first summer when we had a lot of people who were Haitians coming—was a lack of information about the Canadian asylum system and what it takes and what it requires to be a legitimate asylum seek

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, thank you. We've been working very closely over a two-year period now with both the Ontario and Quebec governments. Quebec has been a very important partner with us in addressing, in particular, the irregular migration flows that are coming through at Lacolle, Quebec. We h

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We see biometrics as the foundation of identity management within the immigration system. The implementation of biometrics will allow us to establish the identity of individuals who are coming to Canada on visas either to visit, to study or to work. That is really helpful, I thi

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We will be closely watching that. Clearly, we have had a big surge in applications for citizenship with the change in the legislation. Should that increase result in an increased demand for passports, we will be able to adjust. I think one of the advantages of having a revolving

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We continue to work to reduce wait times. We created nearly 10,000 new language training spaces. We don't really measure wait times on a national basis, because they are so local. It really does depend on the locality. We spend about 36% of our total settlement funding on langua

Citizenship and Immigration committee  This is for the overall immigration program, Mr. Chair. Biometrics is a key element of our identity management, and as we move forward to expand it more broadly, we've been working on both the IT and implementation around it.