Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, the member for Sarnia—Lambton is correct. I asked the government to tell me how many construction workers were brought in through all immigration streams under the different NOC codes. The minister claimed that he was not the minister responsible for NOC codes. It is about 4,500 per year since 2016.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, the member is wrong. When the Paul Martin government was defeated in 2006 and a new Conservative government took over, it took a few years to realize that, in fact, there was a six million to eight million application backlog created by previous Liberal governments.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, the member has a lot of experience, especially on the immigration committee. I usually do not agree with her, but I do respect the fact that she brings a deep level of knowledge to a lot of the immigration issues that she approaches. We are usually on opposite sides of voting.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I did say that she bears responsibility with voting on every single confidence motion and every single confidence measure in the House, and so she does bear responsibility for decisions made by this government. She is supporting the spending, she is supporting the employment, she is supporting the number it is hiring and how it is handling the files.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, concerning the first part of my colleague's question, it depends. I know that this is not the answer he was hoping for. However, it depends. We will see how the debate unfolds. As for the second part of his question, as the member knows, we Conservatives voted in favour of the Bloc Québécois's motion on the Century Initiative.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, what I am prepared to say is that we will have a common-sense immigration system. We will not need a referendum, since we will have a federal government that is able to work with all the provinces fairly. Furthermore, our government will make sure that the provinces are able to tackle the challenges.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, it is sad that those members have not read the immigration plans pre-2015. It was a Conservative government that created the super visa program for parents and grandparents. It was a Conservative government that made the PGP, the parents and grandparents permanent immigration system, work better.

Business of Supply  The member is saying it is not true. I invite him to check the immigration committee's records, because all the numbers have been tabled successively over the last year, which proves the case that all the backlogs are worse than they were in 2015 for almost every single program the government controls today.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, a Yiddish proverb I love is that if a wise man and a fool are debating, and rabbis love this proverb as well, what we have are two fools debating between each other. Sometimes I feel this is what I am watching. I have listened to the Herle Burly Podcast, and the new Minister of Immigration has appeared on it twice now.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on a Bloc opposition day motion. To summarize it briefly, it would recall a vote in the House that tied immigration targets in Canada to various areas of capacity in social services, French and English-language training, transportation infrastructure, health care, jobs availability and education.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am glad that the minister was able to contribute to this debate. It is hard to take him seriously, though, because that immigration plan was tabled November 1. By that time, in his own ministry, there were now over one million international students in Canada. He knew that.

Bill Gairdner  Mr. Speaker, athlete, author, thinker, businessman, husband and grandfather are a few of the ways to describe Bill Gairdner, who passed away at age 83 last month. He won a silver at the decathlon in the 1963 Pan American Games. He competed in 1964 at the Tokyo Olympics, in 1966 at the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica and in 1970 at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games.

Constitution Act, 1867  Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for the very detailed history lesson that he gave about the oath of allegiance. I would have liked to hear even more about that. I would say that section 128 of our Constitution needs a twin, rather than a son, a godfather or a sister.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada's Express Entry program: how many construction or trades workers have been admitted through the program, broken down by stream, year, and each of the major and minor groups within category 7 of the National Occupational Classification codes (trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations), since 2016?

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With regard to the processing times for applications submitted to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, as of October 30, 2023: (a) what are the processing times for the temporary programs, broken down by month in 2023 for (i) study permits, (ii) work permits, (iii) temporary residents; and (b) what are the processing times for permanent residency programs, broken down by month in 2023 for (i) privately sponsored refugees, (ii) federal government assisted refugees, (iii) the live-in caregiver program, (iv) the caring for children program, (v) spouses and partners, (vi) children and other family class applicants, (vii) parents and grandparents?