Citizenship and Immigration committee  We actually put all the efforts towards bringing in those 10,000. However, if the applicants have failed to fill out the application and we do not have the completed application, we are unable to process them further.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is the case that the person who is receiving the call on the other end is able to go into the global case management system, look at the status of the file, and see if there are particular inquiries, for example, about whether something is missing or how much time.... That is

Citizenship and Immigration committee  To answer your question, we actually did use the electronic system for the PGP. We had done extensive analysis that this would fit into the scheme of making sure we were getting “first in”. We tested the system so that it could get the volumes. From previous historical levels, ov

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, the popularity of the program and the people who actually want to get their near and dear ones into Canada.... This is a very popular program, and certainly we expected a lot of people would be coming in and trying to apply for that. To make it very clear, we posted a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We cannot control the kind of input that comes in, and as I mentioned earlier, there were more than 100,000 applicants last year who were intending to sponsor. There's a huge interest in getting the parents and grandparents here, and it was on a first-come, first-served basis. As

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We will have to look into it to make sure we have the requisite number so that we can get to the 20,000, which is the expected PGP level for 2018. If there is a gap—if we need more—then we will...but right now, it looks as if we've calculated it in such a way that we will stick w

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, not at this time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll ask my colleague Mr. Mills to answer the financial question. The 2019 level is 20,000, while we're increasing in 2020 to 21,000, as in 2021 also. There's a 1,000-person increase in there. We understand that this is a very popular program and we want to make sure more people

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll answer it in this way. Just to make sure we had 20,000, we actually accepted 27,000 this year. We have the delta calculator, and we have all the other things in place—duplication is one, but also botched and incomplete applications would be kicked out in the very beginning.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For the parents and grandparents, I would say this is a little bit of a story where we have had a big backlog, which we reduced to very minimal—fewer than 30,000 this year. Plus, we have reduced the wait time that was over 72 months to now 39 months. Going forward, if you apply t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With biometrics, what we have rolled out as such—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  —is basically a tool that we are using for enhancing security, because this is what is used by many countries—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have gone back to our own procedures. I mentioned earlier this is a very popular program. Quite a few people were intending to sponsor their parents and grandparents. We provided all the instructions many days before the opening on January 28 at 12 o'clock. It was on a first-c

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, we put out every piece of instruction for this PCP opening on January 11, where we categorically mentioned that this was on a first-come, first-served basis. Nowhere did it mention that we had a specific period of time. We also mentioned specific instructions that you

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I may add, Madam Chair, one key component with this change would be that when we are processing those clients, in addition to looking at the representative, whether they are on the list or not, we will have the ability to communicate with the clients themselves and get that in