Thank you for that question.
I also take a researcher's perspective. I think we need a bit more information to understand specifically. Working at the community level we can only see what we see, and that's a high need for people to be reunited with their families, but if we were to take a more analytical approach and understand what the needs are for such things as child care, or in terms of the numbers....
The bigger issue that we hope the committee will consider is the way in which the division between economic immigrants and family class immigrants has become increasingly distinguished in the last, let's say, 10 years, such that economic immigrants are treated as having the priority. I think we saw this particularly under the last government. A fast and flexible immigration program that brings skilled immigrants to Canada was the priority, at the expense of other kinds of immigrants including the family class.
What we see in our work and through this research—and I'm sure, as you've said, you understand this issue personally—is that family class immigrants in fact contribute to the broader economic well-being of our immigration program.
What I heard in our interviews was that the majority of the people we spoke to were skilled immigrants. They were working. They were professionals. They wanted to bring a grandparent to Canada because they had chosen to come to Canada because of the ability to have family reunification. Instead of seeing these two as separate spheres—as I know we do, and that's unfortunate—we need to understand that as part of our ability to attract the labour market ready, English speaking, highly educated, skilled immigrants whom Canada allegedly wants to include in our community, we need to be keeping our family reunification programs robust in order to continue to attract those migrants.