Mr. Speaker, yes, my comments are about trying to develop a more collegial approach, a cross party approach to make a good bill that will serve Canada's needs.
I must compliment the minister for being in the House yesterday throughout most of the debate. There were indications of a sense of co-operativeness and a willingness to listen to suggestions from all parties. We have many stakeholders on this issue. Believe it or not, we even have what we call the immigration industry. There is a whole set of hangers on, a professionalism of people who make their living from the immigration industry. They all have a lot to say about the bill.
Once we pass the bill at second reading it would be pretty well unchangeable because of that second reading vote. The ability of the committee to actually make any amendments is very limited. I would hope that opposition amendments would be accepted and that the minister, perhaps based on further testimony, would be prepared to bring in his own departmental amendments that recognize some of the deficiencies that the various stakeholders will bring in.
The other issue is the local constituency office. My office should not be an extension of the immigration department, but I have a heart for my constituents when they come in very upset that they cannot seem to communicate at all with the immigration department. We try to discourage unnecessary intervention by our office. We try to outline the timeline of 18 months or more before they will even hear an answer on certain things. We are able to help some constituents in that regard but there is a tremendous demand from the community.
The greatest workload that I have is on behalf of constituents who come into my office with various frustrations or complaints about the immigration department, and that should not be so. The immigration department should be fully resourced so that it would be only on the rare occasion that the ombudsman role of the member of parliament in the local community would be necessary.