Mr. Speaker, nearly 7,000 applications for permanent residence are waiting to be opened at Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada and have not even been acknowledged. This means 7,000 envelopes are gathering dust on a desk.
Everyone understands that an acknowledgement of receipt does not speed up the processing of files, but applicants do require an acknowledgement of receipt to access health insurance and to ensure that selection certificates do not expire. Quebec has implemented a temporary solution, but it was not up to Quebec to do the minister's job.
Can the minister guarantee that he will respond to the 7,000 families that are waiting and ensure that such a backlog never happens again?