Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Menegakis.
It's absolutely critical that we keep in mind two aspects of this. On the one hand, there's the timeliness and efficiency of processing immigrants to come, and on the other hand, it's the fact that we're talking about permanent residency and there are certain obligations and expectations that we need to keep in mind.
From an employer point of view, when one does identify a candidate, a foreign-trained individual overseas that you'd like to recruit into a job, obviously there's a timeliness and an efficiency consideration. We're very much encouraged that we would be looking at, potentially, six months, but ideally less than six months, as other systems in Australia and New Zealand have achieved—shorter timeframes for that processing once an individual has been offered a position. The timeliness is absolutely critical, because we're not achieving that. As mentioned previously by the minister and others, the federal skilled worker program, for example, is not perhaps as useful a recruitment program to employers when they're seeking foreign-trained individuals, once they cannot find Canadians or others in the domestic labour market.
On the other aspect of recognizing that this is permanent residency we're talking about, there are concerns from our members that everything needed to be done in terms of due diligence around the employer is at the back end of that system. We're very mindful that there are obligations, and those have to be fully adhered to.
I think there's huge scope in allowing employers to have an opportunity to look at candidates who have expressed interest in coming to Canada, who have passed the first round of criteria that are required, and make that assessment as to whether in fact they would meet their needs.
Thank you.