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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to thank our witnesses.

I was somewhat surprised to hear Ms. Sigurdson say that, unlike many other missions, the Moscow mission doesn't have a local decision maker. Why are there no local decision makers in Moscow? How does this fact affect the operation of your mission?

In French, please.

I meant to ask him. I ask him this question almost every time I see him.

Ms. Kathleen Sigurdson: Yes.

Mr. Thierry St-Cyr: I want to know how this situation affects the operation of your mission. Are you still able to do your work and to take into account local considerations? What is the impact of this lack of local decision makers?

Mr. Gilbert, why are there no local decision makers in Russia?

So why do other missions have local decision makers? We have had employees in the past who provided us with local input and guidance. Why do we need local decision makers at all? Why can't we have the same structure everywhere?

That must be the reason.

What do you see as the ideal formula? We have some extreme cases where there are no local decision makers. What approximate ratio are you aiming for?

Are there any missions where most of the decision makers are local?

Okay. Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

I will ask another question then.

Some of my colleagues and I were talking about the approval rate of Russian applications for Quebec. It is very high. I assume that this is because they are pre-selected by Quebec. All that remains to be checked, in Russia's case, are safety and health considerations.

Out of the 4% of cases refused at the federal level, what are the percentages of applications that have been refused for health reasons and for safety reasons?

No, I am talking about refused applications, about the 4% of Quebec selection certificates refused when being processed at the federal level. If I'm not mistaken, they are refused not because of case specifics, but because of either health or safety issues. I want to know what percentage is refused owing to health and what percentage is refused owing to safety.

Mr. Gilbert, do you know the answer to this question?

I want to ask Mr. Gilbert a question. I want to get back to an earlier question of mine, since I was interrupted.

Out of all the QSCs sent to various missions for processing, what percentage were refused for safety reasons and what percentage for health reasons?

Based on your experience or on the feedback from people on site, do you have any idea of the percentage? Are we talking about a quarter, three quarters or half?

Okay.

I want to get back to the topic of Moscow. We will continue our surreal discussion, in which my words are first translated into English to then be transcribed in French.

In your presentation, you talked about immigrants who are investors, and the number of applications by investors processed by Quebec. You said that processing time for investors selected by Quebec is the shortest of any province. It is 32 months, whereas the average is 43 months. However, we obviously have to factor into this the period of time during which the Government of Quebec makes its selection. When the two periods are added, the processing times are somewhat equal and perhaps even longer in Quebec's case.

We have often heard the same comment from immigrants who have gone through the system. I often get the same comment from immigration lawyers or consultants. Recently, Canadian Bar Association representatives confirmed this to the committee. They said that they have the impression that the same work is being done twice. In other words, the Government of Quebec checks the source of funds, confirms that the funds were acquired properly, that they are not the result of criminal activity, that they do exist, that applicants do have those funds at their disposal and that their application is valid. We are told that the same verifications are done at the federal level, while the only thing that remains to be done, in reality, is a security check.

Are you aware of this problem? What measures have been taken to avoid a situation where the work done by the Government of Quebec is done over again?