Finance committee  Yes, competitiveness from a fee perspective, definitely. We want to make sure as we review our fees that we are not charging more, necessarily, than other countries that have similar immigration systems. We want to make sure that we are competitive with those countries and that w

Finance committee  I don't have the analysis with me, but we can provide it. I can tell you that our fees are quite a bit lower than those of similar countries in terms of the permanent residence application. There are many factors that we need to consider, because every country is a bit differen

Finance committee  We don't have studies at this point, but we are reviewing our fees, and this is definitely something we want to look at in terms of the elasticity of the demand. I think that's what we want to see: how much of an impact the fee has on the overall clientele approach in terms of co

Finance committee  The service standards are not necessarily linked to fee setting, but if you look at the service fees act, we need to have service standards by business lines. Each department needs to establish service standards by business lines. That's one element. If we don't meet service stan

Finance committee  We are not subject to those clauses at this point, so I cannot comment on this specifically.

Finance committee  I'm not the expert on the service fees act, obviously, because this bill is not from my department. From the preliminary discussion we had on that bill, the service fees act would replace the User Fees Act. The User Fees Act was established in 2004. A department that has not chan

Finance committee  Our permanent residence fees have not changed since 2002. Yes, some fees from Immigration and Refugees Canada were changed in the past; however, those fees were exempt from the User Fees Act. This is the reason we were not subject to the clause of the service standards.

Finance committee  In the service fees act, the consultation aspect is covered, in a way, via the regulatory process. That's our assessment. However, there are some areas that are a bit problematic from IRCC's perspective in terms of the unique nature of our clientele. It's more related to the fact

Finance committee  These are all elements that we consider when we do a fee review. In reviewing our fees, we look at the different services we offer. We can look at these types of services. We will be envisioning those types of services as we perform the review for our permanent residence streams.

Finance committee  To charge for an expedited service is not necessarily directly linked to the amendments we're....

Finance committee  As I explained before, we are always bound by the Financial Administration Act, so we always have to make sure that the fee we are charging is relevant to the cost of processing. In the case of an expedited service, we would have to assess the cost of actually providing that expe

Finance committee  These amendments in particular? No.

Finance committee  Thank you. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is proposing to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow IRCC to set permanent residencies in a timely manner. More specifically, these amendments would exempt IRCC from the requirements set out under the p