Mr. Speaker, under our immigration law, for decades the power to decide which foreign nationals can enter Canada and receive temporary resident visas has been delegated to independent, highly trained members of our professional public service, our visa officers.
Consistently over the past several decades, about 20% of visa applications have not been approved. That has been constant through changes of government and changes of law.
It is visa officers' responsibility to make sure that people demonstrate their bona fide intentions to return back to their countries of origin. We commend our public servants for doing important work.
We ask applicants to submit documents that are complete and applications that demonstrate their intention to return home.