Mr. Speaker, I will answer the question. For starters, I would like to point out that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said a little while ago that we should stick to what the motion actually says. Now he starts telling me about provincial nominee programs. The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the Canada-Quebec agreement. We think that everything that can be handled by Quebec should be.
Our immigration policy in Quebec is different from the policy in the rest of Canada. Our approach to integrating immigrants is different. The agreements we now have are steps in the right direction, but we still do not have complete control over immigration policy. It is not perfectly suited, therefore, to Quebec realities. It can only be perfectly suited when Quebec becomes a sovereign country. In the meantime, we have to work on various proposals under the current system.
If I stick to what the motion actually says, we are not talking about the nominee program under the terms of the agreements with the provinces. What we are talking about are sponsorship applications within Canada.
I want to remind the House that a sponsorship application can only be made once in a lifetime. We would not be running any great risk if we allowed someone who is living here and has a family here to work, earn a living, help cover his family’s needs and pay taxes so long as his application is being processed. I should point out as well that these applications have very high success rates.
The worst that can happen is that, after a few months, the application is rejected and the person has to leave Canada. At least he will have worked during these few months and contributed to the economy at a time when the government itself says we have a labour shortage. I fail to see what the problem is.
The parliamentary secretary’s question actually rather confirms what I said in the beginning. There are not really any reasons to be against this motion. He is so afraid it could be taken as some kind of criticism that all he wants to say is look how great and clever the Conservative government is and what fine things it does for us. We should rise about this partisan approach and show a bit more humanity and compassion. The people who go through our immigration system, like Mr. Kader Belaouni whom I mentioned earlier, are not just numbers or statistics but real human beings. When a person is in the process of getting permanent resident status and is sponsored by a husband or wife, it is only showing a little humanity to allow that person to work while waiting for the government’s answer.