Mr. Speaker, it is great to hear the Liberal Party, while it is now sitting in third place in the House of Commons, talk about expediting, rushing, hurrying, being fair to citizens, being fair to those foreign skilled workers who are trying to come to this country and being fair to temporary workers who are trying to fill positions here that cannot be filled by Canadians.
It is great to finally hear the Liberal members. It is too bad that while they were in government, they did not even think about trying to tackle the immigration file, about trying to make it better, trying to make it more efficient and trying to make it more responsive. It is great to hear them finally acknowledge all of the mistakes they made while they were in government. They turned them over to us and are now starting to complain about the fact that they should have done a much better job.
It is good to hear that they are finally on the right track when it comes making sure that we are moving forward on the backlogs, because immigrants from across this country resoundingly rejected the Liberals' handling of the immigration file in the last election. When we look at their record, it is no surprise as to why.
We will not take any lessons from the Liberals on how to manage this immigration system, based on the kind of wait times they left for those who are trying to become Canadian citizens and those who are trying to come here through the various other areas of immigration that we have.
It is important to point out that the ministry is now accepting applications and payment online for a growing number of immigration streams and is moving toward a paperless system. This means that much less physical space is required. We are able to expedite individual files on a much more timely basis, while at the same time maintaining a ministry office in each and every province in our country.
We have also revamped the website, including online wizards, how-to tutorial videos, and online help centres, so that applicants can receive the information and help they need. It is a lot more convenient, and it is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
When it comes to processing times, the member has asked on a number of occasions about this question. Let us look at the facts.
First of all, Canadians should be proud that there is such a high demand for Canadian citizenship. After all, who would not want to be a citizen in the greatest country in the world?
Second, I am not sure what the Liberal Party is bragging about, because under the Liberals, in 2005, one year before we took office, the processing time for citizenship was 17 months. Between 2006 and 2011, the average processing time for citizenship was 17 months. It was exactly the same.
What the member is purposely not mentioning is the fact that our government has welcomed the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history. That means there has been a significantly higher demand for citizenship. We have processed 30,000 more applicants on a yearly basis, and we have maintained that 17-month processing time.
I think we have addressed the issue. We are going to do some more work. We are obviously trying to make sure that we expedite every single backlog that we have in each individual area within this ministry. In fact, 185,000 individuals have become Canadian citizens each and every year since we have been in government.
We have made improvements and we are going to continue to make improvements. One thing we are going to make sure of is that the threshold for Canadian citizenship in this country will continue to rise because of this government.