I want to get things back on the motion.
We are talking about is not marriages of convenience and fraudulent marriages and multiple applications and all that stuff; what we are talking about is getting a determination of the case for the person who has applied that this is legitimate or not legitimate before removal is made. That's all we're dealing with. Nobody's interested in having fraudulent marriages that are able to stay. It is the determination when the applications pour in, and it's your department, Mr. Stewart, that makes the decision on it.
The only thing the motion talks about is that until that process is completed, we do not waste time having the border security in, but make a determination on that case. Once that case is completed, if there's a need for border security to be in, then they are in. Until that takes place, having border security involved seems to me to be a real waste of bureaucratic time and a misspending of resources.
From my end, I go back to the parliamentary secretary. It seems to me--and I'm sure Mr. Khan would agree--that the security check should begin immediately, as well as the medical. That just seems to be prudent. All the motion talks about is that once an application is made and until a determination is made on it, border security has no business being in there. Any time they spend on it is totally useless. They should be out there looking for the criminals. That should be the priority, because we have a legitimate process going forward.
Just because CIC is slow in coming to a resolution, the family and the person who made the application should not be penalized. If the determination is that this is not an authentic relationship, then by all means remove the person. That is what we're talking about. Getting in there about fraudulent marriages and marriages of convenience....
You know, the whole issue here is very simple: it's to make a determination. Given the fact that 90% of the ones that are decided upon are legitimate, I think we should make sure everybody gets the opportunity to have their case heard.
I really would like to have statistics on that 11%, because nobody around this table wants to facilitate marriages of convenience. I think any suggestions to that effect are wrong.
What we want is a determination made on those cases that go before you, and you're going to have to say yea or nay on the authenticity of those applications.