Madam Speaker, we had a consensus on immigration. It was never a controversial topic. We had the best immigration system in the world; it was the envy of the world. It was a system that brought in the brightest and the best. It was a system that had integrity. It was a system that worked for newcomers and Canadians who have been here for generations. However, after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government and five immigration ministers in that time, we have seen our immigration system fall apart. Our system is now full of chaos, full of fraud and full of abuse.
What is most concerning for me is that the current immigration minister wakes up every single morning, goes to the media and says that he is alarmed with what is going on, that he is shocked with his own department's failings. Do not take my word for it. His own colleagues have said the system is a mess and is out of control.
We have seen a record number of people in the low-wage stream of our TFW program. We have seen chaos in our international student program. We have students coming to our country for degrees that we do not need from colleges that do not exist. Recently, we saw a massive surge in asylum claims after the changes the government made.
Canada's population growth is at about 3.4%. That is not sustainable. Again, do not take my word for it. The Prime Minister himself has said that Canada's immigration rate has grown “beyond what Canada has been able to absorb”. These are record numbers, and they put pressure not only on housing, services and health care, but also on the labour market for our youth. We saw a 14% youth unemployment rate this past summer because of folks coming here through the low-wage stream and abusing that process. Greedy corporations were also abusing it.
This is not a problem that started today. The government was warned by officials that its reckless policies would cause a housing crisis and would put pressure on our health care system. The government ignored it.
In 2018, the government removed the police clearance certificate requirement for temporary residents coming to our country. Recently, we found out from a media investigation, a story that came out, that government officials were told to skip over crucial vetting for the temporary foreign worker program.
This is weakening our system. It is jeopardizing our country. It is not only putting Canadians at risk, but also breaking a system that was once the envy of the world, a system that everyone wanted to copy, a system that had integrity.
My question for the minister is very simple. We have seen new ministers. We have seen new announcements. We have seen a lot of photo ops. However, we have not seen any changes to our country's immigration system. Why is the minister so negligent? Why has he broken Canada's immigration system, which is not only causing chaos for newcomers but also hurting Canadians?