Citizenship and Immigration committee  The investment in Canada, the foreign capital entering this country, is the measure. Right now it's $800,000 cash that's given up front to a Canadian financial institution and then passed through to the governments. That level of investment should continue to be raised. At the sa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's an excellent question, and there is a potential solution. For example, in Surrey, British Columbia, what's absent is a Canada Border Services Agency vouch-for unit. What can be done is to have a CBSA person on the ground in Vancouver who is capable of receiving a vouch-for

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have to regularly review it and increase the amount to be invested.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. That's the experience of several countries, not just Canada. If you want the brightest and best to build a strong country, you have to put the family at the front of the line, and you can't cherry-pick. A human being comes with family values, including a family unit,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm winding up right now. If you want to reduce processing times on immigrant investor files, raise the price. It's too cheap. And I'll get to that next.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's very feasible because people pay the fees in advance directly to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. So it's a simple accounting matter. The department knows very well that it's in possession of $50 million. They can also trace each payment to each credit card. In the sa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What cannot be denied is the existence of a financial incentive to prolong processing times. There's no doubt about it. The longer you do not process the file, the longer you retain the money for services not yet rendered. If you did that for a car, where you paid in advance an

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's an excellent first step. If there were ever a category of immigrants who fully play out the rules of laissez-faire economics, it's the business immigrant category. By increasing the amounts, the suspicion was that we would reduce the intake so that we could quickly deliver v

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's just about it, but that's a Pacific morning for you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll cut to the chase. Merci, Monsieur St-Cyr. I think the best way of handling this, practically speaking, is to have two forms of information flowing from Immigration Canada. Presently, there is historic information. How long will my visa take if I applied a year, two years

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No one can ignore you, sir, but I'll continue. The creation of a brand-new stream of information answering the simple question, “If I apply today, how long before I get my visa?”—a prospective processing time—would eliminate a lot of the fuss by members of the public regarding p

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Oh, thank goodness, yes, Mr. Chairman.