Mr. Speaker, I hear the member talking about the backlog as if it is some kind of disease. I suggest to him that the backlog of 800,000 people is actually a huge asset in regard to immigrants wanting and waiting to come here. It is a two and a half year wait if we look at the average wait time for those 800,000 people. We take more immigrants per capita than any other country in the world. I am not so sure the member should be calling it a backlog. If we had no backlog, would the member not agree that we would be pulling our hair out and saying that our immigration program is an absolute failure?
Why do the member and his party not simply focus on the committee process? We cannot materially alter this bill here. We can defeat it in the House, but this is a budget implementation bill containing dozens and dozens of provisions and all kinds of financial provisions. We should try to fix this bill at the committee where the clause in question can actually be excised and not adopted. Is that not a better solution than the NDP proposal in this case?