Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to move a motion. This was provided previously. I move that:
Given that,
a. The current Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities was the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship when record high immigration targets were set, and that he has now admitted that those immigration targets helped to fuel the housing crisis, in a press conference on January 15th;
b. The current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship admitted that his department was responsible for fuelling the housing crisis when he admitted that his department is running a "system that’s run a bit rampant for far too long and is causing an impact that is not unappreciable”;
c. The Premier of Quebec has described the immigration system as putting Quebec “very close to the breaking point due to the excessive number of asylum seekers arriving in Quebec month after month [and that] the situation has become unsustainable”;
The committee invite the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities to appear separately for two (2) hours each to explain their remarks, within 14 days of the passage of this motion.
This issue has been in the news a lot. A lot of us are talking about it. It's something that's really critical to this committee. I think it would be very helpful for us to have a chance to question both ministers to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on here, so I would move that motion and I would hope the committee would agree with it.