Yes. I certainly agree with all the comments that have been made by the other two presenters, but I want to emphasize that while we may call the family class a humanitarian class, that is a term we're using, it seems to imply less of an economic contribution from the family class. The basis that's usually used to make that statement is that the earnings of family-class immigrants are lower than the earnings of economically selected immigrants.
I think that's a false economic model. We should be asking, what is the impact that the arrival of a family class has on the earnings of the economic immigrants? In my view, that is quite positive. My evidence for that is, as I said, to compare the Canadian immigration program with the American one. In the American one, by far the largest group of immigrants is the family class, and the way they are seen, it's called a humanitarian category. Yet the overall economic contribution of those immigrants, mostly from Asia and the Caribbean, is as good or better than their counterparts in Canada. So having a very large so-called humanitarian program in the United States is definitely not hurting the economic standing of those immigrants.
Again, while I think we should be addressing the concerns that have been expressed, the pain of separation in families, and so on, we should not take that to imply that allowing those folks to come to Canada is in some way an economic disadvantage for Canada. I think to the contrary.