Mr. Speaker, while other countries in the developed world are actually cutting immigration, I am pleased to announce today that Canada will maintain historically strong levels of immigration in 2009.
To help continue to fuel the economy, I have also announced ministerial instructions under our action plan for faster immigration to accelerate skilled foreign worker applications in 38 high demand occupations, like health care and skilled trades. This will allow us to more closely align our immigration with our labour market needs going forward to help reinforce the Canadian economy at this time.