Mr. Speaker, I will respond to the member opposite by pointing out two things.
First, the very fact that there are immigration provisions in the budget implementation bill is a significant Americanization of the Canadian process. It is not something we are supportive of at all. It should not be in the budget implementation bill in the first place.
I will also add that trying to deal with a backlog by only addressing new applications does not deal with the backlog at all. There is absolutely nothing in the provisions put forward by the Conservative government that will, notwithstanding all the rhetoric, deal with the backlog.
This country needs some very concrete proposals and funding associated with those proposals to legitimately deal with the acknowledged backlog of immigrant applications that we have in this country.
We need skills and we need people willing to put those skills to work. We need that backlog addressed. The Conservative government, notwithstanding all of the rhetoric, has put nothing in the bill to address that backlog.