Thank you very much.
Thank you for testifying at the committee.
I have in front of me an international migration report. It talks about where migrants are going and where they've gone through many years. In 2000, there were 173 million migrants going around the world, and in 2010, there were 220 million. In 2017, we now have 258 million migrants. As you mentioned in your testimony, they're leaving for primarily economic opportunities, for family reunification. There's also war, displacement.
We did a study here on family reunification, and we've been trying to reduce the backlog that was present in certain areas. For example, for parents and grandparents, there were 167,000 backlogged and we're down to around 25,000. There are a lot of people on the move.
It's in an article too, from The Economist. I'll read a paragraph:
More broadly, because immigration boosts the diversity of skills and ideas, a 1% rise in the immigrant share of the population, low- or high-skilled, tends to raise incomes per person by 2%.
You mentioned that with the express entry there were 90,000 applications. How does that impact Canada? As I mentioned here, it raises incomes by 2% per person.
Going forward, how will that impact our society, and will it be a net benefit to us?