Mr. Speaker, I raised that question in the committee. I want to quote Ms. Susan Kramer, one of the directors of CBSA, who said that last year CBSA deported 12,637 people. She went on to say:
The total backlog is 22,000, and of those, 6% are what we call high-priority cases. Those are the ones who pose a risk to national security, those involved in organized crime or crimes against humanity, and of course, criminals.
My definition of criminals is that they have a criminal record, which is pretty serious. She said that out of the backlog of 20,000, it would be under 2,000 people. About 6% of these people would have criminal records.
We need to speed up the deportation of these criminals. If the CBSA can spend more time and money tracking these people down and getting rid of them, fine. I think everybody here in the House of Commons would support that. However, we are not talking about criminals. We are talking about loving spouses.
As to the member's second question on whether there would be people who would abuse the system, there are always one or two bad apples, maybe 1 out 1,000. Some people will abuse the system but it is such a small number.
Marriage is a big occasion. It is a life occasion. I cannot see many Canadians getting married because they want their spouse to abuse the Canadian system and get a work permit, for heaven's sake. If we were to go outside Parliament Hill and ask people if they would marry someone in Canada who does not have status so the person could work here, I think most people would say absolutely not.