Mr. Speaker, for a century and a half, Canada had the best immigration system in the world. Many hard-working, law-abiding people were invited to come here in an orderly fashion. Most of them quickly found jobs, paid taxes, followed the rules, raised families and integrated into our way of life here in Canada to become real, genuine Canadians.
About four years ago, for reasons unknown, this Liberal government decided to overturn Canada's immigration system, to destroy the world's best immigration system. It did so by increasing population growth by 200%, adding 1.2 million people per year. Meanwhile, only 200,000 homes were built. The system is at a breaking point. The health care system and the housing and labour markets are now under unprecedented strain, and Canadians are paying the price.
It is important to realize that these problems were created by the Liberals, not by immigrants or by people. However, people are the ones suffering the consequences. Six million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor. The wait time to see a specialist is now 30 weeks. Last year, patients in Canada were waiting for 1.4 million procedures.
This Liberal Prime Minister promised that he would change things, but that was just an illusion. Now the results of his work are showing. Under this Liberal government and this Prime Minister, the cost of the interim federal health program has skyrocketed by 1,000%, from $66 million to $900 million. It is expected to reach $1.5 billion by 2030.
Last year, the number of asylum claims increased by 2,900%. That is an almost 3,000% increase in the number of asylum seekers in Canada, and 86% of failed asylum seekers remain in Canada, even though they have been rejected by the system. We are talking about 86% of rejected claimants staying here. There are 500,000 people here illegally. Enough is enough. The Conservatives want to take back control. They no longer want to give deluxe benefits that help people who are here illegally more than they help Canadians, the people who pay the bills.
Finally, we want to put an end to the system that gives lenient sentences to foreign criminals in order to allow them to stay here. We will put an end to the two-tiered system. We propose limiting benefits for asylum seekers, especially benefits that go beyond life-saving measures. We must cut costs and eliminate lenient sentences for foreign criminals. That is what we are proposing in our motion to restore the best immigration system here in Canada.
For over a century and a half, Canada had the best immigration system in the world. People came from all around the world. They worked hard, started families, launched businesses, contributed, paid into the system, integrated into our way of life and became proud Canadians.
About four years ago, for reasons still unknown, the Liberal government decided to overturn the entire system of immigration. The Liberals tripled population growth. They opened the floodgates. They allowed rich multinational corporations to profit by bringing in low-wage labour that would drive down jobs for Canadians and drive up rent for the people in our country.
The current Liberal Prime Minister claimed he would change things, but it was all an illusion. Things are getting worse. Six million Canadians now cannot find a family doctor as the system has been overloaded with excess population growth not matched by new doctors. Wait times to see a specialist have hit 30 weeks. Patients in Canada were waiting for 1.4 million procedures last year. More than 100,000 Canadians have died on a wait-list since 2018, roughly the time when this radical immigration experiment began. Twenty per cent of Canadians are stuck waiting over a year for elective surgeries, the most out of 10 peer countries.
Meanwhile, the government provides deluxe benefits that are not available to Canadian taxpayers. It gives those benefits to rejected asylum claimants. To be clear, these are things like vision care, physiotherapy, home care and speech therapy. Things not covered by the public plans of lifelong taxpayers are then being provided to people who are here illegally or have been refused because they made false asylum claims. The cost of the program that provides these benefits has gone up 1,000% under the current Liberal government, from $66 million to about $1 billion, and it is expected to run to $1.5 billion by 2030.
The backlog of asylum claims has exploded by 3,000% under the Liberal government. Three hundred thousand cases were active as of last December under the Liberal Prime Minister. Eighty-six per cent of rejected refugee claimants are still here in Canada. Over two million people's stays are expired or will soon be expired, and the Prime Minister has no plan with respect to how he is going to return them to their country of origin. The Liberals oversaw the removal of only 22,000 people last year. Again, we have two million refugees whose stay here will expire, and the Liberal government of this Prime Minister was able to remove only 22,000, barely a tiny fraction.
Even rejected asylum claimants get access to these deluxe taxpayer-funded benefits, and when Conservatives moved a motion at the committee to study this problem, Liberals filibustered and blocked it. It is more obstruction from a Liberal Prime Minister who does not want to change anything.
Canadians have big hearts, but they expect to be treated fairly, and they expect that they should get at least as good, if not better, services than those people who are here illegally, nor do Canadians accept the idea that Liberal-appointed judges give sentence discounts to foreign nationals who commit crimes while visiting this country. It is insane that these sentencing discounts are deliberately designed to prevent foreign nationals from being deported from this country after they commit crimes. The government should have a deliberate policy of deporting foreign criminals who are visiting our country and breaking our laws. We do not need lawbreakers. We need good, law-abiding Canadians.
To that effect, Conservatives moved a motion today for a full review of the federal benefits provided to asylum claimants, in order to find savings for taxpayers; to restrict benefits received by rejected asylum claimants to life-saving benefits, and nothing more; to provide transparency on the spending for these programs through regular reports to Parliament; and to pass policies into law that would immediately expel foreign nationals who are visiting our country and commit crime while they are here.
We call for no more sentencing discounts and no more two-tiered system. We need a system that treats everybody fairly. We are a compassionate country, but we are a country based on law and a country with an affordability crisis. We are a country with health care wait times out of control. Now is the time to work to change all of that.
Let us once again put our people first and ensure that they have affordable homes and food, safe streets to live on and health care that cares for them when they need it. That is a common-sense approach. We call on all members of Parliament to put aside their differences and support this common-sense motion. Let us bring back the greatest immigration system in the world.