Hon. Jane Cordy: Senator Gold, as we return to the Senate this week, there are many university students across the country who are returning to their campuses. However, thousands of international students who have applied to attend university here in Canada are all no doubt under a tremendous amount of stress and face uncertainties as they continue to wait for study permits.

It was reported that, as of August 18, the government was still processing 163,000 applications from international students. With those numbers, and with only two weeks before the start of the semester, I would think that many of those students would have missed the start of this fall term.

Senator Gold, would you be able to provide an update to this chamber on the backlog of international student study permit applications?