Thank you, Minister.
I just want to provide some more details, because we had some redacted documents last week, and I've received some more information. In 2016, the first year your government lifted the visa requirement, there were about 128 people from Mexico detained at the border. The visa requirement worked. It prevented people from coming here who had questionable backgrounds.
Do you have any idea what that number was in 2017, after your government lifted the visas? It went from 128 people in 2016 to 2,471 people in 2017. That is a massive, massive change. In fact, if you look at it cumulatively, from 2016 to 2024, 11,000 out of 16,000 people who were detained at the border were Mexican nationals. That's 68% of all the people who were detained at the border since your government lifted the visa requirement. This is huge work for the CBSA to do. These people were also released on a 48-hour alternative to detention.
Minister, do you not recognize that there was a cause and effect? You said in the last meeting that you saw no correlation, that you lifted this visa requirement and your government opened the floodgates for this to come to Canada.