Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for keeping everybody in a timely manner.
Minister, thank you and your department so much for doing all the hard work, not only hard work but smart work as well, and getting results. I also thank you for bringing the highest numbers to Canada in 2010.
Let me tell you my own story. One of the reasons I chose Canada was that I was convinced the fairness rule prevails here. I touched Canadian soil in Toronto, then we lived in Montreal for a couple of years, then we moved to B.C., and ultimately we settled in Calgary. I can tell you thousands of stories, same with my nephew--he landed in Toronto, settled in Calgary.
The fact is we can all agree that the settlement pattern.... First of all, it is not always necessary that immigrants will settle at the place they land. We also can agree that settlement patterns haven't changed. I can see that. As I said, I can give you thousands of examples. But I was surprised to hear in recent weeks that the Ontario government condemned the new arrangements.
Minister, why does the Ontario government feel that Ontario is entitled to receive ever-increasing amounts of federal settlement funding, when the number and proportion of immigrants is decreasing in Ontario? And it is substantially increasing in my own province of Alberta and other provinces—Manitoba, B.C., Yukon, you name it. Why are immigrants in those provinces considered of less value than those in Ontario?