Mr. Speaker, as I was stating, in my opinion the immigration system is broken. The minister is either unwilling or unable to fix it. The fact that the minister has brought forward the bill as her first substantive piece of legislation is evidence of that.
I would like to state again as I was stating before I was interrupted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration—he might notice that word on the end of the minister's portfolio—that one of the flaws in Canadian politics is the difficulty in dealing with subjects such as immigration as if to raise the issue itself is tantamount to questioning its beliefs. The place of immigrants or the value of a certain category of immigrants in this kind of unspoken censorship has been a chronic problem for both journalists and politicians.
We firmly believe that the government must account for the way the objectives of immigration programs are being met. This is in accordance with the rules that allow the true exercise of the democratic rights of Canadian citizens. Only then can we restore the public's faith in the management of immigration programs. At the same time we will restore the confidence of those who implement these programs and, in the end, of all those who elect to settle in Canada.
I make that comment because quite often what happens is that members of the government throw names at members of the opposition who would point out problems with the system.
We do point out problems with the system because there are problems with the system. We point out those problems so that the system we would hope would be fixed by those who are in power and have the ability to do so.
We make these comments because we believe in immigration, we believe it is a positive force in this country and because the government is derelict in its responsibility to take care of glaring errors.
I will continue to raise those issues—