Mr. Speaker, it is our government's goal to increase the number of francophone economic immigrants outside Quebec to more than 4% of immigrants by 2018. We aim to further increase the proportion of francophone newcomers to 4.4% of all immigrants to Canada by 2023.
Our government is convinced that our new economic immigration application management system, express entry, will contribute toward achieving that goal. That is because it is the route through which the majority of immigrants to Canada will arrive.
Next year, we plan to welcome 65% of all immigrants to Canada through our economic immigration stream. Not only does this have the potential to increase the number of skilled francophone and bilingual permanent residents, it will also bring them to Canada more quickly than ever before, as most applications will be processed within six months or less.