Minister, good morning.
You're talking about immigration timelines. You agree that 2005 was an exceptional year as far as timelines were concerned, because of the tsunami and other mishaps. You and I travelled to Sri Lanka with the Prime Minister in 2005. We allocated resources from bringing in skilled workers to bringing in the family class. So you will agree with me that 2005 was not a good benchmark. If we use 2004 as the last Liberal benchmark, I think you would agree with that. The 2004-05 timelines were not regular.
Minister, I'd like you to justify how we went from, in Beijing, 47 months to 68 months for skilled workers; in Manilla, from 53 to 65; in New Delhi, from 50 months in 2004 to 73 months in 2007; in Islamabad, from 44 months to 70 months; and in Damascus, from 55 months to 71 months. These are processing times. In those posts, Minister, we bring in 50% of our skilled worker category. So 80% of our skilled workers were coming in, in a processing time of 53 months overall in 2004 to 68 months currently. That, Minister, to me signifies an increase of 58% longer processing times for skilled workers.
The previous speaker gave you a couple of easy questions, and you sat there and justified this.