Mr. Speaker, fortunately we do have the capacity to investigate cases of fraud already, and we do revoke citizenship when it is proven. That has been done in dozens of cases since 2011.
As the member says, there are 3,000—not 5,000 but 3,000—RCMP investigations under way. I am not going to speculate on how many of those will lead to a conclusion that fraud actually took place. That is the RCMP's job. However, there are very important measures in this bill to prevent fraud in the future, measures to make it impossible for applicants to mislead the authorities responsible for citizenship in my department about the time they have been physically present in Canada.
That is going to be extremely valuable for this program and for the value of citizenship. It will be welcomed by those who know this program and want to benefit from it across the country. Most of all, it will improve processing.
For Canadians, for those who have applied for citizenship, and for those who are here as permanent residents and will apply soon, the main benefit is that processing will be faster under this act. Anyone who delays the passage of this bill is actually disenfranchising many tens of thousands who urgently want that citizenship.