Minister, I was part of that government from 2009 to 2011. The decisions we had to make at the time, both within the department that you currently manage and the government machinery as a whole, were not taken out of a lack of compassion, but out of necessity.
I have to say that I sincerely felt very insulted this afternoon, as did all my colleagues, when you said that we lacked compassion because we made budgetary cuts, or, more specifically, we reduced the amount of money that was allocated to certain places. I must say that this is unacceptable.
That being said, I read your eight-page plan on francophone immigration in Canada and I have questions for you on the large number of illegal immigrants crossing the border, immigrants who are primarily of Nigerian origin.
You were in Montreal this morning. I heard on the radio, just after your interview, that the vast majority of these immigrants were anglophones. In fact, roughly 95% speak English and 5% speak French.
What do you plan to do with these asylum seekers who have been illegally crossing our border for the past year? Last year, more than 20,000 people illegally crossed the border. This year, we expect that number to be even higher.
Many of these people are inevitably going to stay in Canada and will have to decide where to live. Since the majority of them speak English, this is not going to help improve the percentage of francophones who could settle in the other provinces.