Thank you.
Minister, you tried to swing these measures on Canadians through the back door, and you did so without consulting community groups. There's a growing list of stakeholders who do not support these measures: the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canada Arab Federation, the Chinese Canadian National Council, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, and the Alliance of South Asian Communities' immigration lawyers, such as Lorne Waldman and David Cohen. The only people who have supported this legislation have been from patronage organizations, such as CFIC, and their support has been weak. No stakeholders have been contacted. Knowing that this is a very weak bill, you've allowed the Prime Minister to give it minimal coverage, two out of the 150 pages.
You keep going back to the backlog. Not one single witness has said there are measures to deal with the backlog. I want to know exactly how this will deal with the backlog and how you can claim you have any serious intentions for your interests in your portfolio when you are pushing through legislation without proper consultation that is clearly not supported by a majority of stakeholders.