Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I too want to thank everyone for being here today. Thanks for your hard work.
I'm going to start off with a couple of comments, because there have been some very thoughtful questions from some of my colleagues on the opposite side, and I'd like to address them.
My colleague Mr. Chambers talked about how many new FTEs there are in this budget, and there's a lot of concern around that. It's an important concern and is something we always have to be thinking about. For those who might be watching from home, it's important to know that we are an activist government. We have been one since we were first elected.
We've put in place major unbelievable programs, like national child care. We're putting in national dental care. The reconciliation that we're doing is historic. We're taking aggressive climate action and promoting gender equity and innovative economic measures around innovation and immigration. There are lots of reasons there has been a big increase in FTE counts.
I would say, though, that it's very important for every government to always ask, as we're introducing new programs, what tightening we need to do. It is important to note that in this year's budget, we have $15.4 billion over five years for a reduction plan. We should always be looking at where we should be reducing as we're looking to adjust programs. Those are absolutely important questions, but I think it's important to put that on the record.
My colleague Mr. Morantz mentioned that a number of different elements are included as part of budget 2023 and asked what the correlation is. I want to say that budgets by various governments have included a number of different elements. Our government is very careful to ensure that all of the measures included are either mentioned in some budgets, whether it's budget 2023 or budget 2022.... The former Conservative government, when they were in power, did not do that and often included elements that had no reference to any other budget. I just wanted to point that out in terms of the difference.
With that, I have about 45,000 questions and only two and a half minutes to ask them.
I'm going to start off with some immigration measures.
If I go to part 4, division 16, part 4, division 17 and part 4, division 19, we have a number of changes or amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act: capping the number of sponsorship applications, establishing a clear framework for asylum claims and providing electronic means to administer and enforce the Citizenship Act modernization program.
My key question is for whoever might be here to respond. I forget. Was it Mr. Pink who responded before? I want to see how this will improve processing times, if Mr. Pink happens to be here.
I don't see him here, Mr. Chair.