Citizenship and Immigration committee  I believe it's always a good idea to have an ombudsperson. However, I can't prove that these delays are due to racism rather than existing regulations. For example, international students are told that the reason they're being rejected is because they are not providing proof tha

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're talking about 2016; there was a pandemic for two years. I feel that had an impact. I don't know if that 30% increase in staff still stands. We would have to see exactly where the department is now, because my understanding is that a lot of people are no longer there.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Of course, it's a very good thing to be able to pick and choose people who can come to this country for economic reasons and find jobs quickly. The problem is that employers need people right away, not in 10 days from now. So we need to find a way to speed up application processi

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In my opinion, these are the important things... We need more immigrants from French-speaking countries, especially in Africa. For that we'll need more visa offices. We must also facilitate foreign student applications by no longer asking them to prove that they will return hom

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, this is something we support with the FCFA. The francophone community would like to see a higher percentage so we can get more francophones coming in to make up for the lower percentages we've seen in past years.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Certainly. We've been calling for this with the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) and the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR). It would absolutely be important for those who are already here. It would be a very good thing to regularize individuals who are al

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Of course, it's extremely important for the vitality of our francophone minority communities for us to encourage francophones to come to Canada. In reality, however, as I was saying, the majority of francophones come here from sub-Saharan African countries, and there are very few

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Definitely. It has a considerable impact on the issuing of visas for students who are supposed to be coming, and on issuing visas for those who want to come and work.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Ever since I returned to Canada in 2007, we've been working to increase the number of francophones in our minority communities. There's been talk of 4.4% for years, but we never manage to reach those numbers. I think one of the reasons is because most francophones are in sub-Saha

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good afternoon, members. My name is Saint-Phard Désir. I'm the executive director of the Economic and Social Council of Ottawa-Carleton, ESCOC, and a member of the Ottawa Local immigration Partnership, OLIP. I'd like to point out that I'm not necessarily speaking on behalf of