Thank you, as always, for these insightful remarks by our colleague Ms. Chow.
There is a plan, a very clear plan, to improve economic outcomes for newcomers and ensure that immigration is working for the Canadian economy. I agree entirely with you, Ms. Chow, that this means we must maintain a robust stream of economic new permanent residents. We're doing just that.
I don't think you give Canada enough credit in this respect. We are one of the only major developed countries in the world that is plowing ahead with ambitious targets for permanent residents in the midst of the global economic downturn. We are doing so because we think it's necessary to plan for the mid to long range, even though there is some softening in the labour market right now.
Everything we've done is calibrated to improving economic outcomes for newcomers. That's why we brought in the action plan for faster immigration to focus on people whose skills are most in need on a national level in Canada. It's why we've increased processing times in that stream, federal skilled workers, from five years to less than one year. It's why we've worked with the provinces to expand the provincial nominee programs.
Now we get criticism from some that supposedly we're reducing the federal skilled worker program, and people wrongly allege that we're giving up spaces in the federal skilled workers stream and moving them over to temporary foreign workers. As you know, that's ridiculous.