Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all members who have participated so far in the debate on Bill C-272. I hope others have a chance as it hopefully comes back later in the parliamentary process. It has been interesting hearing the ideas and suggestions about this important legislation.
The bill follows up on a commitment that the NDP made during the federal election campaign to introduce exactly this kind of legislation. We are proud to follow up on a commitment we made to Canadians back in June, and here it is being debated in the House of Commons because quickly we followed up on that promise with the support of our caucus.
We also want to point out that we listened to the feedback from the previous incarnation of this bill, which my colleague from Vancouver East introduced in the last Parliament. In that Parliament, the bill did not define the additional family members. It was wide open. It could have been any family member.
We heard the criticisms made by other members from other parties about that bill. In light of the concerns raised at the time, we changed it to specifically define which family members would be eligible so it would not be an open season on who could come to Canada through this provision. We listened to the debate that took place in the House at that time and incorporated those ideas into the new Bill C-272, which we are debating now. I want to let members know that their comments were taken into consideration.
As we have heard from the member from Windsor West and Winnipeg Centre, families are crucial to Canadian society and to our immigration program. At the very beginning of our Immigration Act, it states how important family reunification is to immigration policy in Canada, although sometimes I think it takes a back seat. That is what the bill hopes to address by putting it back in a place of prominence, by ensuring that families can bring the people who are most important to them to Canada to be with them.
We all know that definitions of families do not necessarily correspond to the relationships that we form in our families and the importance of those relationships. The definition of family in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is exactly like that. It just does not cover the relationships that many people have within their families. This private member's bill will expand that to allow other opportunities for families to be reunited in Canada.
We have heard that there is some problem with expanding the definition, that there might be a flood of people which the system cannot handle. The reality is we do not make the target to which the government is committed. The government is committed to 1% of our population. That would put it up around 310,000 immigrants a year. We only make 66% of that total.
We have never been close to that total and we need to because immigration is important to our society. As the government's own studies show, in the next decade, by 2011, all growth in our labour force will come from immigration. If we do not meet the 1% target, we will not have growth in our labour force. By 2026 to 2030, all population growth in Canada will come from immigration. Therefore, we have to get closer to that 1 %target of the population. We in the NDP believe that family reunification needs to be a key part of reaching that target.
We hear about backlogs. Backlogs are created because back in the 1990s the government cut the immigration department so severely. The Citizenship and Immigration department took one of the hardest hits of all departments in the cutbacks in the 1990s which were targeted for special treatment and special bad treatment in that situation. If there are backlogs, it is because of that.
We need to address the backlogs. We need to ensure that people are not waiting forever for families to be reunited in Canada. We also need to do that in the context of making the targets and ensuring family reunification is important.
It is also important for our competitiveness of our immigration policies. We have competition from Australia and the United States. If we do not improve our program, we will lose out in the international competition for immigration.
Today at the citizenship and immigration committee, we heard the testimony of the Ottawa-Carleton Immigrant Services Organization, OCISO. Its executive director Nancy Worsfold talked about settlement and her experience of helping new immigrants settle in Canada.
She talked about how the immigrants who come through family reunification are doing a much better job of settling in Canada because they have the support of their family members. They are much happier and are much more easily incorporated into Canadian society.
Independent applicants and economic applicants are very disillusioned. They come on a point system and often cannot practise their profession. Family reunification has proven to be important.
I am glad we have had this chance to debate the bill. I look forward to continuing it with the support of members in the committee.