Mr. Speaker, Canadian immigrant families have to wait up to eight and a half years to be reunited with loved ones. That pretty much sums up the Conservative commitment to family values.
Blinded as the Conservatives are by an ideology that reduces people to line items on a budget, it is surprising that they cannot even see the economic argument in ensuring that families reunite quickly with their grandparents and parents. With the cost of child care and housing so prohibitive, something they are not doing anything about, it is often grandparents who provide child care while parents are working.
The cornerstone of Canada's commitment to newcomers should be bringing families together, not making immigrant families wait years and years to be reunited with loved ones. Surely we can all agree that families belong together. That is a value we all share as Canadians, do we not? However, it has become clear that the Conservatives do not seem to understand the importance of all of this. Heck, a Conservative minister even referred to parents recently as “a burden”.
Canadians deserve better. Newcomer families deserve better. They will get that from New Democrats, who will always fight to make sure that family reunification is an essential priority in Canada's immigration system.