Mr. Speaker, first I would like to commend my colleague, the critic from the NDP, on the issue of immigration and citizenship, and the member for Burnaby—Douglas on his initiative, as well as the member for Winnipeg North who has been working on this over the years.
When we look at Canada, there is no question that we are a nation of immigrants. More than 50 members who sit in the chamber came to Canada as immigrants and, of course, there are all sorts of other members whose parents or grandparents came to this nation. We are a nation of immigrants.
Ironically, what we really are talking about is giving recognition to the extended family. In some sense we are talking about family values, which is an important component that we have to put into our immigration policy.
The present cutoff is 60% economic and 40% other. There is nothing magical about those numbers. I think the department and the government should be re-examining them. The reason I say that is, as we know, our immigration policy on the economic side is heavily tilted toward credentials and higher qualifications.
A number of years ago when the shift was made in the point system, we demanded more qualifications from people coming into this country. It has not always been successful because we have not given recognition to the fact that in many cases the country is not ready to absorb all the professionals that we are bringing in. All one has to do is witness the fact that we probably have the highest qualified taxi driving force in the world, and it does not reflect upon us very well.
The other issue I want to touch on is the whole issue of settlement. It seems to me that it would make sense to Canadians that when people come here who have ties to this country, such as relatives, they will have an easier time settling. Settlement is a real challenge for us. I think it is important that we put a focus on that whole issue.
Getting back to immigration itself, it is not something that we do because we are a humanitarian country. We do it because immigration represents the lifeblood to this country. As was mentioned before, if we look at the demographics of this country, any growth in the workforce in the next decade will come through immigration. In terms of immigration itself, we have to recognize that the way we have the point system structured we do not pay enough attention to things like skilled trades. We pay too much attention to university degrees. As I mentioned before, we have the problem with brain waste that occurs.
I can tell the House that when someone comes to this country who might be a high tech worker, that person is going to drive services, such as housing, which involves tradespeople who do not necessarily qualify under the point system. It also triggers demand in the service industries.
It seems to me that the whole issue of family reunification would serve the purpose of enabling success for the new immigrant in terms of settlement, enhancing the quality of life of Canadians in this country by providing them with an extended family, and certainly it is an issue that we very much want to get to committee to have extensive debate on. The policy we set in terms of immigration to this country will determine the future of this nation.
I think this is a win-win bill and it is something that we in the committee could work with to enhance our Immigration Act and immigration practices.
One of the points I want to make very strongly is that just because a policy exists, it does not necessarily make it right. I only have to point us to what happened when we changed the point system on immigration. What happened was the committee strongly recommended against it. The bureaucrats pushed it forward and the government stayed in that position.
I can say that once the appeals started going through the courts, the unjust process by which we were judging immigrants coming to this country, was turned around but was not turned around because of any will of Parliament. It was turned around because the courts said so.
In closing my address on this particular issue, I think it would really enhance our debate on immigration. It would really be helpful for the quality of life of citizens in this country who have families who could come here to make a contribution.