Citizenship and Immigration committee  From where we sit, we're not in a position to be able to fast-track someone's permanent residency application or citizenship in any country in the world. That, of course, is something that governments have to consider themselves. Once that has been established, we're able to process the early fund withdrawal.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We abide by laws and regulations in the jurisdiction in which we operate all around the world, as you would expect us to do as a highly regulated industry. There's nothing that supersedes that. We abide by the regulations for financial services, as everyone in the industry does for the benefit, by the way, and the protection of our customers and of their pensions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Could you repeat the question, please?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We are absolutely devoted to fulfilling our obligation to pension holders. We've been doing that for 137 years. We seek to do what's best for our customers around the world. We will always do that. We will also comply with the rule of law and the regulations that govern the activities of the highly regulated financial services sector in which we find ourselves.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As of March 31, 2024, Manulife manages, in Hong Kong dollars, $330 billion of customer savings in MPF pensions. This is publicly available information. You could look at Mercer's “MPF Market Shares and Net Fund Inflow Report” or also our public filings for our assets under management.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The question of whether a customer is entitled to permanent residency in Canada or to Canadian citizenship is one for policy-makers. In terms of what we communicate, we walk through the process as it is today, which is that they apply for early withdrawal, that they submit a form, and that they make a statutory declaration that they have departed, or will depart, from Hong Kong to reside elsewhere and have no intention of returning to Hong Kong for employment or for resettlement.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Our company complies with the regulations in all the jurisdictions in which we operate. The answer to that is that, yes, we do.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, absolutely. Of 4,650 requests from 2021 to 2023 for early withdrawal for the reason of permanent departure to Canada, we were able to process 3,750 of those. Three per cent of the customers did not provide sufficient evidence of the right to permanently reside in Canada. The remaining customers either had incomplete documentation or were not processed for a variety of other reasons, like a signature mismatch or a previous MPF withdrawal.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Manulife is a proud Canadian company with a long history of serving our customers, regular people across many jurisdictions, for decades. Wherever we do business, we focus on protecting families through insurance and also with pensions to secure their retirement. It's true in Asia.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the financial services sector we're highly regulated, and nearly everything we do is set forth in laws and regulations. The evidence of permanent departure is something that is in the regulations in each of the jurisdictions in which we operate, including this one.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I understand the question correctly, when a customer wants to access their pension early, they apply to us and we do the first processing.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The answer to that is no. We interact with governments around the world and regulators, but no. I think the direct answer to your question is no, if I understand it properly.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know the answer to the processing time. It assumes that all the documentation is complete and that your application is ready to go. I can absolutely get that for the member.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We're seeking to do what's best for our customers around the world. We will always be devoted to our customers. That's our focus. The Indo-Pacific region of the world has over four billion people and accounts for $47 trillion in economic activity. Canadian companies, including Manulife, have been operating in this region for over 100 years.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the confusion is about what constitutes citizenship and permanent residency, because that in fact is a criterion for permanent departure from Hong Kong. It's also a criterion if someone were leaving Canada or the United States for that matter, but in this case, in the case of the BNO visa, it doesn't convey citizenship, so that's a question for governments to answer with respect to permanent residency applications.