Madam Speaker, in my riding of Peace River, immigration is one of the main areas I have to work with as an MP.
A lot of people want to come into this country. Canada has been built on immigration and I think will continue to be built on immigration. There are a lot of potential candidates for immigration who would make excellent Canadian citizens.
On the other side, we saw the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration last year let in about 4,500 people on special ministerial permits, fast tracking that whole process. Of those 4,500, something like 1,000 to 1,100 had criminal records including charges of murder and rape in their own country.
Considering that such a terrific amount of people want to come and make Canada their home and would make good citizens, what does my colleague think of the process of having those special ministerial permits? They essentially bypass the process where we should be extraditing those criminals back to their own countries to face charges rather than giving them Canadian citizenship.