Thank you to Ms. Antonio, Ms. Bragg, and Mr. Ungar.
If you look at the table, most of us may be the exception here. We are all on your side. We understand it. I came to the country back in the 1970s. I sponsored my parents back in 1977, if I'm not mistaken. They came in 1978. It was a different Canada in those days. Today it is a totally different Canada in which immigrants may represent 32% or 33% of the population.
For people who were sponsoring parents or grandparents, there were limited applications. If I am not mistaken, we have 80,000 or more applications in the queue. It's all about how we can balance it. The system can allow up to 300,000 total immigrants into the country. This is the reality. According to the numbers, we are looking at 80,000 in the family class of immigrants coming, about 20,000 of whom are parents and grandparents. It's all about balancing where we can bring economic immigrants, parents and grandparents in every single category.
What are the reasonable numbers? What do all of you think is a reasonable number that we can work with? The mandate of this committee is to look for the solution. The solution is to find the reasonable number that both sides can live with.
Can we start with Calgary?