Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it's primarily due to the complexity of where the camps are, where the refugees are coming from, and getting the documentation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Did you want to comment?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I want you to know that all studies regarding settlement and integration, and therefore retention, indicate that the key reason people go there and stay there is family members or friends. So if you have somebody who is established within a community and if you are a new immigran

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I may respond—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have not heard of this. Recently I attended a medical panel with the donation people, and they have very clearly stated that for people to donate any kind of organ in Canada and to receive any kind of compensation for it is highly illegal in Canada. I have not heard of it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think this is a direct result of 9/11. The lengthened processing time is because they have spent more time in the last number of years on security. That's one reason, processing the security aspects of the application. We were recently in a meeting with the director of operat

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's exactly right.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it's critical that Canada be consistent in its programs and services, and that is obviously an area in which it's not. In addition, you must know that this fee really poses an undue hardship for these refugees, many of whom are working at menial jobs, low-paying jobs, if

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll try to keep this brief.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. Mr. Darcy Dietrich runs the Regina Open Door Society, and he's very excited about the Karen refugees who have come. He's working full steam ahead to provide services for them. The Karen refugees can talk about that in greater detail. In terms of the sponsorship agre

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd like to respond to that by saying that I was a foster parent for 18 years and raised four refugee youth from the camps, two from Malaysia and a couple from the Philippines. I want to say that this is an issue that's very close to my heart, because I still keep in touch with s

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was the chair of the B.C. refugee committee for the Mennonite Central Committee. I actually sat on the Mennonite Central Committee board of directors, as well as a binational Mennonite Central Committee, in Akron. We did a lot of this work in both countries. So absolutely, I wo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. We have struck a virtual information management committee that is looking at developing a sector-wide information management system, because we do believe this is critical and very important for this day and age.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Kormarnicki. We'll be writing some letters, I'm sure.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I may just say one more thing, in addition to the study that we're requesting from the standing committee, we are also wanting to work on a national approach for refugee and immigrant children and youth. By “national approach”, what we mean is that right now this is a group th