Mr. Speaker, I truly commend the minister on his French. We only wish that the department had improved in the same way, but instead it has had its share of failures during the pandemic.
Unacceptable delays in granting work visas and permits are piling up. Applications for permanent residence filed in Quebec remain unopened, while confirmations of permanent residence were issued to people who were then denied entry into Canada. The temporary foreign workers file was mismanaged and the department missed its own sponsorship target.
Can the minister admit that when everything is falling apart, there might be more to blame for the problem than just the pandemic?