Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll start with students, Madam Chair. A full 25% of those who came through our economic pathways in 2019 had been students in Canada or were coming through a postgraduation work permit and were successful in that. We have, then, a really good incidence of students moving into

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely, Madam Chair. Those who are already in the country, whether they're students or temporary foreign workers who are here and are already working, are people we absolutely want to attract as we try to meet levels targets in 2021. There—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for the question. When the pandemic hit in March, we realized that some parts of our workforce were better equipped to work from home than others. For about 55% of our workforce—and we have about 9,000 employees here in Canada—it was easy to disconnect a laptop from t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Chair, it may depend on what's in the file. I don't have a clear answer; let me start there. It may depend on what's in the file. It may depend on particular circumstances associated with the file. I wouldn't have a better answer on a specific case. I'm sorry about that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Mills.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are always happy to look at things that will improve client service in this regard. It's a complicated area, as you know, Madam Chair, between us, our sister department at ESDC and how we move quickly through this. Any suggestions are always welcome to us as we continue to loo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for the question. Nothing would make me happier than to say that we could have an excellent system in there that would allow people to know exactly where their files are in progress. Until we have a system, a better digital system, and can move away from the number of

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are working hard to make sure we process as many applications as we can, to not have that backlog continue and to move these files forward as fast as we can. We're in a situation now where we have, in person, about 30% of our workforce back in our large processing operations.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For 2020, Madam Chair, we will not reach our targets. We've really been hampered by a border that's been closed since March 18—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thanks, Madam Chair. Program integrity is a really important part of our business, as the member has indicated. We try to treat all applications fairly as they come through, but program integrity and fraud is a real part of our business. We're looking for things that are robust,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On labour market impact assessments, I'll leave that as a question you can follow up on with my colleagues at ESDC. On the other hand, I think I'll come back with something the minister said. With levels of 401,000 for 2020, it's going to push us in the department to be more inn

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's a really important question for our business. I'll take it apart in two different ways. One is that we have had a lot of innovation in the past eight months, where we've had to look at different ways of doing our business. Where things have worked well, these are things t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  This has been Mr. Mills' innovation and good work, and I'm going to let him answer that question.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thanks for that. I should note that in the national interest exemption letters that have been issued, the vast majority have been for technical assistance, I think in the way which the member has described. The other thing is that we are always looking for ways to improve our b

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for your question, Ms. Martinez Ferrada. Perhaps our most innovative measures relate to citizenship, with the virtual ceremony. Sorry, but I'll continue in English, Ms. Martinez Ferrada. The online citizenship test, I cannot begin to say how happy I am that we have