Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Minister, thank you for your comments.
I'd also like to welcome the officials from the department. We appreciate, obviously, your work as public servants on this very important issue of immigration and citizenship.
Minister, I read your comments, and every time I read--and I recognize these words, by the way--that people “reprofile funding”, I wonder what that means. Essentially, it's a polite name for money that actually wasn't used or was cut, and that, of course, is related to your fourth sentence, about the Canada-Ontario immigration agreement.
One of the concerns I have vis-à-vis the whole issue of immigration as it relates to immigrant settlement as well as language training is the amount of funding that actually lapsed. I think we all recognize in this committee that one of the major barriers for the integration of immigrants into Canadian society is in fact language. There are $81 million lapsed in that area, and $11 million, I believe, in the area related to settlement aid. I'd like an explanation for that, number one.
Number two, Minister, if I may, this is not necessarily related to the estimates per se, but it is an issue that you and I have shared concerns over, and that is the refugee reform package that was promised a while ago. We still have not seen the package. We would like to give that particular issue the respect it deserves when you have a staggering 62,000 backlog of refugee claims and a system that I think everyone in this room agrees is broken.
I wonder what the story behind that is. Have you presented a package to cabinet? Do you have the support of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance for the funding required? If yes, then when would you expect the package, and if no, then let's be honest with the Canadian people and say that's just not part of the agenda.