Madam Speaker, a number of the member's remarks were factually inaccurate but I do not have time to identify all of those now.
The member just said that the government has abandoned the whole concept of family reunification. If the member studied this issue at all, he would know that the opposite is true. The government has increased this year and next the number of parents and grandparents who will be sponsored into Canada as permanent residents by 60%, going from the average under his government of 17,000 admissions under that program up to 25,000. That is a huge increase, not a decrease.
Similarly, he repeated his outrageous smear that I and the government somehow stigmatize refugees. The opposite is true. It is true that I visited one of the smuggling boats that dangerously brought people to Canada for profit in violation of all of our laws. I have also visited thousands of refugees in Canada. Just last week I visited with some of the Iranian homosexual refugees we have welcomed here with our special program. The week before that I met with some of the Karen Burmese out in British Columbia.
That is why this government is increasing by 20%, by 2,500, the number of Convention refugees settling in this country. We are increasing the support they get under the refugee assistance program by 20%, something that member's government never did.
With respect to the asylum question, the member is criticizing us because we will not give rejected claimants coming from safe, democratic countries access to the refugee appeal division. The Liberal government was opposed to creating the refugee appeal division at all. Under these reforms, the vast majority of failed claimants would have, for the first time, access to a full fact-based appeal, something that the member and his party denied all failed refugee claimants. How does he explain that basic hypocrisy?