Mr. Speaker, I want to tell my hon. friend that I think life would be pretty simple if we only had black and white film in our cameras, as clearly he is viewing many policies that come before this House.
I would dare say that we on the Liberal side feel that we are the party of immigrants. We are the party of the charter.
This issue could well be taken to committee, and I would encourage a vigorous debate so that Canadians can make their voices heard.
I do not think that anybody in this House would purport that we have a perfect immigration system. I happen to have an urban riding in Kitchener in the heart of the Waterloo region. It is one of the fastest growing, distinctly diverse communities in Canada. I deal with immigration cases all the time and I can say that the system is not perfect. I can say that the two per cent increase the government is suggesting, as it imbedded this important piece of legislation by stealth, yet again, in its budget bill, is very unacceptable.
However, to deny Canadians the ability to talk about how we could improve the system, whether the appeal system is appropriate and how we can deal with the backlog, I would agree with my hon. friend, I do not believe that this is the way to go. I do believe that we have a moment when we could have Canadians come to have a vigorous debate and we could improve this system.
Because he has black and white film in his camera, and it is either thumbs up or thumbs down, he is ready at this point just to say thumbs down, that he does not want to hear from Canadians, he does not want to take this opportunity to improve the immigration system. I would ask him what his party would purport to do to improve the waiting lists and the processing of immigrants to Canada.