Madam Speaker, since being elected, this is probably the number one issue I am getting calls about in my constituency office. There are heartbreaking stories of mothers leaving their children behind to come to Canada. They have to make terrible choices. That is a legacy of the cuts that were made over the last 10 years.
This is why our government has committed to restoring the funding to ensure we deal with those backlogs and decrease the processing times, particularly for family class immigrants. Keeping families apart, especially mothers and fathers with children, is even more difficult if they have been apart for a number of years. Why on earth would we want to do that?
This issue is a priority for the people in my riding. It is a priority for the Minister of Immigration, who has been doing a wonderful job so far in trying to fix what has happened over the last 10 years in that department.