Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, let me help my friend, Mr. Redekopp. Perhaps he will be able to vote against his own amendment.
The IRCC very well knows that our office is the busiest office in Canada. There are far more cases than any other MP has across Canada. I see the compassionate cases that come forward as well. Now it's taking them about 34 months.
Being a professional engineer, I'm also very practical as well. This bill is giving every individual an opportunity, as Madam Girard explained earlier. If an individual wants to have a ceremony in person, they can go and take the oath in person; if they cannot do that, they can do it online. We are already giving that option that my dear Conservative friends are looking forward to, but when we get into these compassionate grounds, there are 350,000 cases every year—350,000. People are going to come out and say they can't go in person for certain reasons. Everybody is going to think that their case is the compassionate case, and then they will take it to the minister.
In fact, this will cause more delays and more backlogs in the system. Instead of reducing the backlogs, in fact, we will be creating more backlogs, and I would like to ask officials if they would agree with me on that particular issue, when the compassionate cases are already taking 34 months. It will put more pressure on the department.