Thank you.
Ms. Mendez-Smith, there are a couple of things you were mentioning in your testimony and in answering questions. You said that 30%.... You've been trying to fill those positions for over a year. Also, when you were asked questions, you said that you don't have housing in certain communities.
I want to talk about the investments that our government has made. We've looked at integration and opportunity, and the success of Canadians and newcomers requires a substantial amount of investment. That's why we moved forward with the national housing strategy of $40 billion over 10 years, so that we can alleviate the pressures that we're seeing with housing in metropolitan areas, whether it's Toronto or Vancouver and even in rural areas.
I know that in my area some wait-lists for housing are six-plus years, and it's higher in the GTA, from what I hear.
We've also made historic investments in transit and in infrastructure, and we've increased settlement funding by 20% since 2016. These are some of the things we've invested in so that Canadians and newcomers can see their potential success currently and in the future.
With these types of investments, have you seen positive results within settlement services, within newcomers coming to your regions?
Obviously, we need to do more. More investments are needed in rural areas. Adding to that, we've put forward the new rural and northern immigration pilot. Can you elaborate on that?