Mr. Chair, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak tonight in this important debate on a subject that has really touched all Canadians, not just those of Filipino heritage but all of us whose friends, neighbours and fellow citizens in communities of every size, as we have already heard in the debate tonight, have been affected. All of us have seen the images on television, not just of a storm, not just of a natural disaster, but of a devastating typhoon of an unprecedented scale that has left a big region of a big country reeling and has driven millions of people, without any warning, into a condition of acute humanitarian need.
What are we seeing across Canada just in this past week and a half? We are seeing an extraordinary response, a very modern phenomenon whereby the Canadian government is able to act quickly. Canadians have responded with enormous generosity. Information has been flowing in because the Philippines is a country wired to us very closely and where information moves, even in conditions of natural disasters such as this, relatively quickly. That has made our response faster, more effective and larger in scale than perhaps we have ever seen in a case so far away from our shores in our history of humanitarian response.
What is at the bottom of Canada's ability to do this? There is a certain resilience, and I take particular pride as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in the fact that we now have a strong, successful Filipino Canadian community in Canada, many of whom are relatively recent to Canada from the Philippines, who still have relatives and friends there who they know, are in contact with and to whom they have often been sending millions of dollars in remittances, which themselves are a major source of income for the Philippines. It is this group that has led our response.
Yes, the Government of Canada has done a great deal. We have heard about it tonight and we will hear more, but we are extremely proud of our Filipino Canadian co-citizens who have led the way, have shown us the way, in many respects, and whose presence here, linked back to the Philippines, is giving our relationship with that faraway country great resilience and great dynamism at this time.
There is also a question of our economy in that Canada would not have the resources and our Filipino Canadian recent arrivals and those who have been here longer would not be able to remit as much back home were it not for the economic opportunity here. It is another example of why having an economic plan and economic success pays benefits not just in times of prosperity but in times of hardship and acute need, as we are seeing in the Philippines today.
There is also a question of logistics. It is banal, and I know colleagues opposite do not often speak of these questions for predictable reasons, but the DART would not have been there as quickly as it arrived, the medical teams would not be there, the helicopters and other lift would not be there were it not for the fact that this government has acquired C-17 strategic-lift long-distance transport aircraft, which have made it possible to get heavy loads halfway around the world efficiently and actually save lives. Resilience, economic success and good logistics all play a role.
On this side, we are absolutely governed in this debate by our sympathy for those who are still suffering and the relatives of those still in need. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones and homes, the families who have been injured, have lost livelihoods and do not see the future clearly from where they sit in the Eastern or Western Visayas, on the island of Leyte, on the island of Cebu, on the island of Panay. Our condolences go to those who have lost loved ones and our solidarity goes to all those who are still struggling to get through this crisis.
However, in a time of crisis our message, which we have heard from our Prime Minister from the very beginning and again this week, is one of reassurance: “Canada will be with you”. We are confident in leading a strong Canadian effort, not just by government but by the Filipino Canadian community and by Canadians across the board, who have been enormously generous.
We heard the Prime Minister adding $15 million to our previously announced efforts at the beginning of this week. We heard that $20 million has already been donated by Canadians, and that will be matched by the Government of Canada. This is good news for those who are still waiting to have their needs looked after.
The DART, the Disaster Assistance Response Team, has done a fantastic job on Iloilo in the province of Capiz, as well on the island of Panay. This is the kind of emergency for which the DART was conceived. It is absolutely wonderful to see it deployed in record time and to see it doing that tremendously effective job on the ground. We know that the Canadian Forces, whether in a humanitarian mode or a combat mode, are second to none in the world, and we are very proud of what they are doing today, tonight, and all this week in the Philippines.
As I said earlier, we are also proud of a community that now numbers over 600,000 members in Canada, the Filipino Canadian community. Let me remind the House that in 2012 the Philippines was the second-largest source country for immigration to Canada. Just over 32,700 permanent residents were admitted to Canada last year from the Philippines, a 146% increase since 2004, and we are looking for that trend to continue. We have committed to bringing 17,500 live-in caregivers to Canada next year as part of our effort to deal with a backlog in that area that grew up under the Liberals and went unaddressed for too long. Many of those spaces will be taken up by Filipino Canadians if the past is any indicator.
Despite the seriousness of tonight's subject, we continue to have detours from the opposition into strange spaces. For some reason, opposition members think this is all about climate change, that if we had just negotiated harder in Warsaw maybe this storm would not have happened and the emergency would not be under way. We disagree. There are people on the ground, millions of them, who need aid, and hunger strikes in Warsaw and debates on climate change at this stage are not the solution, just as looking into the root causes of terrorism was not the right response to a tragedy on the day of the Boston Marathon, and just as it is not appropriate for Liberal members to waste time, in an important debate that they asked for, talking about the time frame for family reunification.
This is a program that was a disaster under the Liberals. Everyone knows backlogs have been halved under our government. Everyone knows the situation is better, that we have the largest and most effective team we have ever had in Manila, and that we are bringing record numbers of permanent residents, temporary foreign workers, and visitors from the Philippines under this government. We are proud of that record, proud to build on it, and proud to give members those numbers tonight.
I am proud of what our colleagues are doing on this side. The member for Newmarket—Aurora, who is speaking as part of today's debate, attended a fundraising musical concert that was organized by a movement of Filipino Canadians across the greater Toronto area. Countless of my colleagues have been doing this in communities large and small. I myself was at St. Francis de Sales Church in Ajax, where many members of the congregation trace their roots to the Philippines, and I saw the generosity of not just Filipino Canadian parishioners but of everyone in responding to this need.
We in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration are doing our part by expediting passport processing and giving priority to the applications of those who want to be permanent residents, those who want to be visitors to Canada, and those whose applications we had but who are from the affected areas and who really need the benefit of friends and family support in Canada more urgently than anyone else.
We call on Canadians to help us identify those cases. We have identified hundreds of them. We have had thousands of calls relating to these kinds of cases, but we put out our message to everyone in this House and across Canada to help us to meet the needs of those who deserve our help at this time. Help us to do it by expediting these applications. Help us to replace documents that were lost in the typhoon. Help us to ensure that Canada remains at the absolute forefront of relief efforts in the Philippines, a country we have never been closer to.
