Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the circumstances of today have shortened my response to this motion from the hon. member.
On behalf of the Government of Canada and the Prime Minister, I rise to oppose this motion introduced by the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina. I would also encourage all hon. members to vote against this motion to divide Bill C-50 into pieces.
There are more than 900,000 people in the queue waiting to come to Canada. If we do not do something about that staggering number now, it will balloon to close to 1.5 million in just four years.
Canada is a destination of choice for potential immigrants from all over the globe. There are millions around the world who would like to come here and who would qualify to come here. They cannot all come here, though, and that is why we need to manage immigration: to make it a system that is fair to prospective immigrants, fair to their families and fair to Canada.
I was proud on March 14 when our government introduced its budget and proposed amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the IRPA. I am proud that this government is taking positive steps to improve Canada's immigration system.
Let me address why the government has proposed amendments to the IRPA through provisions to implement the budget. Several precedents already exist in which previous governments have used budget bills to make changes to several pieces of legislation and not just to the Income Tax Act. What we are doing is not unprecedented.
As well, like any bill, the budget implementation act is a public document. It will be reviewed by the Standing Committee on Finance and the proposed amendments must be approved by Parliament and receive royal assent before becoming law.
The proposed changes are being sought in a transparent manner. As the House well knows, immigration is a key factor for the Canadian economy and figures prominently in this government's “Advantage Canada” priorities.
Finally, we should consider that the IRPA was passed in 2002, one of the few times, I might add, where major changes to the immigration system were made through wholesale changes to the act and also brought forward through the House of Commons and not done solely through cabinet.
The consultations and parliamentary debate that took place may have allowed for such discussion, but during the time of these discussions, over one million people applied to come to Canada in order to get in under the old rules. This is the genesis of the backlog that we have today, which is why a lengthy public debate on this matter might not help the problem that we are aiming to address. This is not to say that we are opposed to public debate about these proposals, as our efforts here today demonstrate.
I would like to expand on why these measures are important to Canada. I see my time is up, but I want to emphasize the fact that we will not be supporting this motion.