The first thing I would say is that we have to realize that with the target level we've established, immigration is essentially a zero-sum game. If we process more in one category, then we have to process less in another. I think our balance in immigration is probably correct overall, with its balance between social and family reunification and economic immigration.
My recommendation would be that we need more efficient processing within the system. I think we would address that with more fees and more resources, and I've talked about how we might be able to do that.
The other thing we need to do is look for alternatives. For example, the family class parental sponsorship program has a huge backlog. It's one that's very troubling for all of us as practitioners and for the ministry and the minister.
We need to look at the underlying motivations of why there are so many parental sponsorships. In many cases, it's simply because families want to have their parents visit Canada freely. If we introduced a system whereby parents would be able to receive long-term visitor visas easily, not through the current very difficult visa process, that would reduce demand.
The second reason for family class sponsorship is to bring siblings to Canada. Let's introduce a program to allow student visas to be issued for siblings, whereby Canadian residents can sponsor their brother or sister to come to Canada as a foreign student who is paying foreign student fees and is supported by the family--