Madam Speaker, the member for Calgary Nose Hill is absolutely right.
In its response to report 11, “Starting Again: Improving Government Oversight of Immigration Consultants”, the government states that it “expects to be able to provide more information on the way forward next year.”
The member mentioned “limbo”, but the only place limbo belongs is on a beach, with maybe a drink or two. It should not be part of government policy, especially when the House has provided recommendations to the government. The response cannot be “Sometime in the future, maybe in a year, we will provide to you our action plan.” The House spoke, the House had a committee that determined unanimously that these 21 recommendations were reasonable, and the report was tabled here.
I think it is incumbent upon the government to treat members of Parliament, regardless of the party, with respect by providing us with a timeline, an actual response that we can study to see if the timeline is even reasonable. A year from now will be way too late, in 2018, or early 2019. There is an election coming, potentially in 2019. That could wipe out the work of this committee. There may not be any action taken then, because once it gets too close to an election, it eliminates the opportunity for action to be taken to stop these types of fraudster consultations.