Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's a new initiative that was launched, which really facilitates the process for employers, under a number of conditions, to obtain those labour market opinions. That is a good example of a way to really improve the process. There was a very significant reduction in the time required to get the approvals under that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's related to the whole issue of following up on conditions. Again, you'll see that we indicate in the report that the department indicated to us that they didn't have the authority to do that. If an employer wants go through the expedited process, he has to agree to voluntarily be subject to a follow-up on conditions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As an example, when we did the last audit in 2000, we saw that immigration officers abroad were spending a lot of time assessing language skills. One of the only ways to do that is to have interviews, so they were interviewing a very high number of people, and that took a lot of time with scheduling and meeting and whatever.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  So you're referring to paragraph...? Okay, the title. As the Auditor General mentioned, that whole issue is very important. It's been a longstanding issue. We have seen the government put two programs in place. We have the foreign credential program put in at HRSDC. We had another one very recently in immigration.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The review covered the period from promulgation of the new act, in 2002. We did an audit in 2000 and looked at what happened between the two, but the focus was for the period between 2002 and the spring of 2009.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we actually met with employers from Alberta, B.C., and Ontario. We don't really report on this, but we really listened to what they had to say, so that was part of the audit.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. That was a question that we asked in 2000. We had raised some rather serious questions about whether applications were being processed efficiently. The department responded at the time that it was developing a new case management system. Clearly, a number of problems have arisen.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, we really did not observe any instances of non-compliance with the legislation. Regarding your question about refunds, if applications are deemed ineligible, refunds will be provided. Earlier, the Auditor General stated that from February to December of 2008, some 300 applications were deemed to be eligible.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, any charges incurred for hiring immigration consultants or other persons are not refunded. When prospective immigrants submit an application, they are charged an application processing fee. If their application is deemed ineligible, the fees will be reimbursed.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we're citing this one as a good example of how programming decisions should be really supported. They did a very good analysis of the cost of that program, of the benefits, of the risk involved, and of the type of impact it can have on other streams within the immigration program.

Government Operations committee  My understanding is they have been filled. But again, with board memberships, people come and go. So that was a snapshot at a point in time for a year. Again, if we had a Canadian member whose term expired last month, it would be important to replace that member, because new members are coming in and terms are expiring on an ongoing basis.

Government Operations committee  The period we referred to in the report was from March 2007. So it was almost a year.

Government Operations committee  It's similar to other GIC appointments. Again, we have 11 Canadian members who are appointed by the Governor in Council.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, IDRC is quite a particular crown corporation. Based on their legislation, there are 21 seats on the board, and 10 of those seats are reserved for people from other countries. So they need to have 11 Canadian members and 10 foreign members. When we did the special examination, we didn't have the 11 members because of the delays in making appointments to the board of the IDRC.

Government Operations committee  Well, I guess the worst situation would be if they didn't have a quorum, meaning they could not make official decisions. In the case of IDRC, the legislation says there needs to be a majority of Canadian members. So with 21 people, depending on who's there or not there, there's probably a way to manage the attendance at the board so that you have a majority of Canadians.