Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for agreeing to share his time with me. I would have listened to him for another half hour because of his eloquence and rich vocabulary, as my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé mentioned.
I would like to begin this first speech of 2022 by acknowledging the members of my constituency team, who are listening right now because I asked them to prepare this address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. I would therefore like to thank Andrée‑Anne, Marie-Christine, Marika, Jacinthe and Mélissa because they really work hard. I am convinced that is the case in all the ridings represented by my colleagues in the House of Commons. We work very hard to address the very moving and personally difficult requests from our constituents.
Some people find themselves in difficult situations. I have to admit that there is a lot of frustration that builds up when we see the lack of support and organization in the services provided by certain departments.
This evening, we will speak to the Speech from the Throne. Not surprisingly, no one is holding their breath about the result of the vote. We have already announced our intentions. However, I find that this is a good time to point out some troubling issues that the current government should have addressed as a top priority.
I want to start by talking about employment insurance reform. Things have gotten worse now, but in 2021, 300,000 applications were not processed on time. Some of these applications have yet to be processed, and it is now February. The normal processing time is 28 days, but that target is rarely met these days.
People are going without income for several weeks. Dozens of cases were referred to the Drummond food bank. These fathers and mothers who were earning an honest living are now in extremely precarious situations.
We hear heartbreaking stories every week. Not too long ago, when I was first elected in 2019, it was rare to hear such emotional stories. Now it is commonplace. We have almost become accustomed, but we never will, thank God, because we are compassionate, caring people. This type of situation has unfortunately become so common that it is now a regular part of our work day.
Take Mr. Picard, for example. He has five children and has been waiting for EI since the end of November. His file is being processed. When he inquires, he is told that his file is being processed and that they are verifying some information. The system is working, but it is just a matter of speeding up the process and making this department a little more efficient.
Now, let us talk about immigration. I do not know how many times we have talked about it. I do not even know where to begin anymore. Yesterday, according to an article published in La Presse and an English-only press briefing by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, it was announced that the government should be back on track by the end of the year, after COVID-19 caused a significant backlog in processing applications. In 2019, there was already a significant backlog of immigration applications. COVID-19 is starting to become an excuse for everything.
It might almost be better to tear down the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and rebuild it from scratch. Some delays date back to well before 2019 and long before COVID-19. The government previously announced that it would spend $85 million in 2022–23 to process the backlog, yet there are now 1.8 million pending applications.
I could tell the House about many heartbreaking cases. I would like to talk about Ms. Dupont, a woman in my riding who I have spoken to a few times. She obtained permanent resident status in June 2021, but she never received the documents. It is now February 2022. Ms. Dupont dealt with the pain of losing her father, who became ill in the fall. She was told that she should not travel because there was a good chance she would not be allowed back into the country without her documents. Ms. Dupont was unable to get to her father's bedside, and he passed away without getting to see his daughter and grandchildren in the fall.
Over the holidays, Ms. Dupont found out that her father-in-law had stage 4 cancer. Because she still has not received her permanent resident card, she cannot take her family to France to be with her father-in-law during his final days. The department could maybe do with a little more sensitivity. It might be time to work on that.
From family reunification cases to businesses looking for temporary foreign workers to help them get through the pandemic, there are dozens of cases like these every week, not just in the riding of Drummond but in every riding represented by my colleagues here.
We were hoping for something concrete for culture in the throne speech. Web giants have been stealing ad revenue from our media outlets and content creators for too long. We are expecting the new broadcasting bill to be introduced this week, and I call on all my House of Commons colleagues to get it passed quickly. Our culture, our content creators and our media are at the breaking point. They have been waiting years for an updated Broadcasting Act. We will be getting a look at the new bill this week, and we must pass it quickly to restore balance to Canada's broadcasting system.