Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to the bill of my colleague from Parkdale—High Park. I listened carefully to what my colleagues said earlier. If this does raise concerns about allowing more people to enter Canada, we should examine this bill from another perspective.
When we talk about people who can be a sponsor once in their lifetime, we are speaking of human beings and not quotas or numbers. We are talking about people who came to Canada, perhaps years earlier, with dreams and sometimes without possessions, and who were able to integrate, to put down roots, to contribute to society and who now wish to have family members—not necessarily immediate family members—join them so they, too can have a better future and a better life.
There is nothing more noble than wanting to help someone who would like to immigrate to Quebec or Canada, even if you are a distant relative. We must not forget that when people leave their own country to go elsewhere, it is because they are looking for a better life in place where they can grow financially, physically and spiritually. That should be uppermost in our minds as we talk about this bill.
I am able to speak to this bill in this way because two people in my riding whom I know quite well are political refugees from Tanzania. These people have a specific problem today. They would like to be reunited with their family and have their children come and join them. Unfortunately, that is proving to be very difficult.
There has been mention of an immigration backlog. There certainly is a backlog, because roughly 50 of the 156 commissioner positions have been cut, even though there are 115,000 immigration applications. There were 115,000 as of September 2005, and then 50 position were cut. How are the poor commissioners who are left supposed to examine more applications? They are not robots.
These cuts were made after the Conservatives came to power. When the Conservatives took power two years ago, Canada was short five commissioners. The person who was to appoint replacements had a list of 80 people who could fill the positions effectively and immediately. But instead of acting right away, the government preferred to wait and leave the positions vacant.
If there is a backlog, it is not because Canada is accepting too many immigrants, but because the government cut immigration commissioner positions.
The two people who live in my riding are Tanzanian refugees who met in a refugee camp. The woman had children whom she believed had died when her village was attacked. She narrowly escaped death and was taken to the refugee camp before being brought here.
Imagine her surprise a few years ago when she was told her children had been seen alive. Since then she has been trying to find them to reunite with them, but she has had to go through so much red tape.
The case of the man in this couple also concerns us. He was working for the Tanzanian government at the time. When he realized that something bad was brewing, he quit his job. He was then perceived as an enemy of the military and he was set to be assassinated. He also ended up in a refugee camp. He then came here as a political refugee. When he left the camp, he failed to mention that he had children because he feared for their lives.
The one believed her children were dead and the other did not want his children to be killed. Today, these two people are having difficulty bringing their children here. They are being denied DNA testing, under the pretext that it is too complicated and too expensive.
All these immigrants are asking for is permission to sponsor a member of their extended family once in their lives. The government is in a position to help them. As my colleague said earlier, when immigrants come here, they have to find a school or a job, they have to put down roots and integrate and so on. Is there a better way for people to integrate than to come to a country where they know people, where they have family, people who love them and will help them settle in? Is there a better way than being able to count on people upon arriving rather than finding oneself alone, which was, sadly, the case for these two people?
I do not think there is a better way than that. Claiming that this would put the country at risk is not a valid argument. How could it possibly put the country at risk? People who were allowed to become permanent residents and citizens here have already had their backgrounds checked. The people they want to invite here, the people they want to sponsor, will also have to go through background checks. If an immigrant seeks to sponsor a person once in his or her life, that does not mean that the applicant will be exempt from the process that all immigrants have to go through. That is nonsense. People are trying to misrepresent the issue by saying anything they please to make others believe that this bill is no good.
I am sorry, but we believe this bill has merit and certainly deserves to be referred to committee for further study and review of the parameters. If certain things about the bill bother or upset the members, they can examine them. That is what parliamentary committees are for.
I hope my hon. colleagues will not listen to our Conservative colleague and that, quite the opposite, they will be willing to side with reason for once, and vote to refer this bill to committee.