Mr. Speaker, I tried to raise this earlier today. Members will recall that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism caused a huge increase in the backlog. He came out with what he called Ministerial Instructions 1 and under that instruction the backlog literally skyrocketed by 140,000. Then he started to criticize the previous government saying it increased the backlog when, in fact, all on his own, he increased the backlog as did no other minister before him. The reason I raise that issue is that a year later he was saying the problem had to be fixed. What he did to fix the problem was hit the delete button.
My colleague addressed this issue in part in his remarks. This is not about files—I believe the member said—but about people who had hopes and dreams, who postponed their lives in their home countries in anticipation that some day they would be able to come to Canada as immigrants. The minister said he would hit the delete button and they would not exist.