Mr. Speaker, the minister of immigration and I have had our political differences this week, but on this matter of policy, we are very much on the same page.
This bill would give citizens and permanent residents a once-in-a-lifetime chance to sponsor a member of their extended family, which includes brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles and cousins. That is a wonderful idea. It would be commendable if our system worked wonderfully and if we did not have waiting lists and wait times that are much too long. Our priority must be to first bring over people who will help build a stronger country and to recognize the importance of immediate family members, such as children, spouses and, of course, parents and grandparents. However, to be honest, I think that our system is not robust or efficient enough, considering the resources we have, to expand this definition to include brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins.
When the member for Trinity—Spadina stood to respond to a question, she went on about the horrific wait times that people are facing. I absolutely agree with her. I have the honour of sitting with her on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, which is doing a wait time study that deals with the hardship so many new Canadians are going through right now. They are waiting far too long to bring over their loved ones, spouses or children. The wait time is 8, 10 and sometimes even 12 years to bring over one's parents or grandparents.
What concerns me is that the proposal by the member for Trinity—Spadina would actually increase significantly the wait times for all of those people who are still waiting for their close relatives. Far from improving the system, it would be making it worse for everyone.
She talked about young Irish and European immigrants who are interested in coming here and that somehow being able to encourage their cousins, brothers or sisters to come would be a major incentive for those young people to come. Perhaps it would form a small part of an incentive, but the genuine incentive, which she mentioned herself, for those young people to come over would be to find work, to be able to build a family, to be able to create a future.
For most people, building a family and creating a future does not depend on being able to bring over an uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, cousin or extended relatives. It means bringing over a spouse, a parent or grandparent. Sometimes it means bringing over children.
The member mentioned that she would specifically target young people. It would be wonderful for young people to bring other young people, their cousins, brothers or sisters. Nothing in her bill specifically targets young people. It is a one-time permission to sponsor anyone. As the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism mentioned, there potentially could be millions more people applying to come here.
We need to make sure we keep a robust and effective principle of citizenship and immigration that brings over the best and brightest from around the world and sets them to work to build their own relevance. We need to allow them to achieve their hopes and dreams, and give them the tools to do so. Our immigration system is the most generous in the world. Canadians who are defined not by their differences but by the strengths of their differences need to remain firm in understanding that people can come to Canada and build their lives.
Even though the minister is proud of having welcomed record numbers of people last year, at the same time he is cutting $53 million from settlement services for those vulnerable new Canadians. This will make it more difficult for people to integrate, prosper, develop language skills and find jobs in their areas of expertise. It will make it more difficult for them to feel like fully valued, relevant participants in building this great country, as we do every day, all of us, as Canadians.
The challenge we are facing now is how to make our current system work better, a challenge that, to my mind, the Conservative government has not lived up to yet, certainly not when it is insisting on cutting family class immigration for parents and grandparents, certainly not when it is cutting settlement services that would allow new Canadians to succeed. One thing we cannot do, however nice it might seem to be able to do it, is further expand at this time the definition of the family classes we can sponsor.
The reality is that we simply do not have the resources to open the country up like that. The same people who might be happy to be able to sponsor their cousins, aunts and uncles would be even more frustrated to have to wait even longer for their spouse, children or grandparents. That is why the Liberal Party is not inclined to support this motion.