Yes, I'm on the list.
Mr. Chair, it's very hard to stay impassive and not say anything. I'll try to limit my comments.
I admire passion, especially that of my colleague, who prides herself on defending the interests of Canadians and says she is outraged that her motion does not seem to be moving forward. At the same time, she says that she is in favour of immigration and motherhood. Ultimately, it's all fine rhetoric. And now we are being told that for our part, we're creating division.
May I remind my colleague that there were 167,000 family reunification files waiting to be processed when we came to power. This means that members of their families in Canada were waiting on 167,000 prospective Canadians to join them. On average, these people had to wait seven years for their file to be processed.
You were talking about funding, but this is not about money. Rather, we must understand the intent that is behind this. Given these fact-based figures and statistics, one has to conclude that the government had no means to reunite these families at the time. For 10 years, immigration was certainly not a priority for your government.
For our part, however, we quadrupled the number of people who could apply. We increased that number from 5,000 to 20,000. Moreover, we decreased the wait time from seven years to two. I think the intention is quite good.
You tabled your motion while witnesses were present. I'm embarrassed for them and for the Canadians who may be watching what is going on here. We're conducting a serious study on immigration and on the settlement and integration of immigrants. We want the organizations that receive government funds to that end to explain what they are doing right. They do very good work. We want to see what more we can do, as a government.
However, you introduced a motion with no regard for collegiality. We were never apprised of this motion. In addition, you introduced it during the time allocated to debate. We are wasting the witnesses' time, when they took the trouble to travel here, and while they are still here listening to us. I thank them for that, even though I am embarrassed by this situation. You know that in the end this motion will not pass. It will not pass for the simple reason that its underlying intentions are false and do not align with the wording.
It goes without saying that we want to improve security. It was never this government's intention to neglect border security. That said, quite honestly, I need to remind you that our committee is focused on immigration. There is another committee that examines public safety issues. It will deal with these matters. We reject this motion. That committee may consider it.
We have studies to carry out. We have set our priorities, but we can't manage to do those studies. The last time Minister Hussen was here, you made us waste the whole hour. We weren't even able to put questions to the minister. This was not our fault, but yours. You were busy raising trivial issues during the time when we could have asked questions.
I'll stop here. I know others will certainly want to comment. For my part, I have to say without hesitation that I will be voting against this motion.