Mr. Speaker, this evening, I was hoping to speak to the Minister of Immigration, but I see his parliamentary secretary will be representing him. I am therefore very pleased to speak to the member for Parkdale—High Park, and I thank him for being here this evening.
I would follow up with him on the arrival of refugee families. Various communities in my riding have been awaiting their arrival since January 2016. I would like to remind the minister that, in my riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, community groups responded to the government's call for assistance and mobilized to properly prepare for the arrival of refugee families.
Sponsoring committees were set up in Pont-Rouge, Saint-Ubalde, Saint-Basile, Donnacona, Portneuf, and Cap-Santé. Many generous people gave of their precious time and worked long and hard to raise a significant amount of money in order to be able to absorb the cost of housing the refugee families for a year. That was a government requirement.
In one case, people rented a house in February and made the necessary arrangements so that the home would be ready when a young family arrived. At the time, that family had a 20-week-old baby. By now, that baby will be needing a whole new wardrobe.
These people worked extremely hard to collect money and, unfortunately, have had to give these items to other families in the community and purchase new ones. It is unfortunate because the sponsorship groups are impacted by this government's inaction, as shown in this example.
This government has been in power for more than one year. During the last election campaign, it had a sense of urgency with respect to bringing a large number of refugees to Canada. We remember little Aylan, whose photo made headlines around the world. The NDP and the Liberals pounced on it as though it were a good news story. It was so urgent that it is no longer on the government's to-do list. The government failed the community groups that were mobilized. This government abandoned the honest people in our regions after the October 2015 election. That is another broken promise.
Last spring, I asked the Minister of Immigration many times, in writing and also during statements and question period in the House, why he did not show any empathy and why he was not keeping his promise to ensure that refugee families were brought to Canada. Sponsors had been anxiously waiting for them to arrive, not just in my riding, but across Quebec and Canada.
The response to the many inquiries by my office to that of the Minister of Immigration is always the same: we are working on a plan to try to continue bringing more refugees to Canada, but we do not have any arrival dates; things are proceeding, but given the nature of the file, everything is confidential.
The minister even criticized Canadians for being too generous.
Therefore, I am asking the government to expedite the process and to give a clear answer: will the refugees be brought in, yes or no? If yes, when?
It is unacceptable that we are given that kind of answer and that Canadians are being blamed for their generosity.