Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right. Even after a marriage has been found to be bona fide and there is no question that two people are married and have a committed and legal relationship, it can take a year or often more before a partner is allowed to join his or her husband or wife here in Canada.
And what anguish it causes Canadian spouses when their partners cannot join them in Canada. One of my constituents married a woman. It took over two years before she was able to come to Canada. It was clearly a bona fide marriage. This man haunted my doorstep. He was so very upset, enraged and anguished by the separation from his wife. He went to visit her as often as he could and actually depleted the family's savings and resources because they tried to spend as much time together as possible. Why? What is the point?
It is simply because the necessary resources are not available to deal with this situation in a compassionate and humanitarian manner. It is just no way to run a system. It causes people unnecessary pain and loss. There is no compassion. We in the Conservative Party intend to correct that very quickly.