Mr. Chair, I have a number of things that I would like to say, leaving maybe 15 seconds for the minister to respond. I will try to get everything in in the next four minutes.
We need to put things into the proper perspective. First of all, I would recognize that we had an election just over a year ago, when the Prime Minister made a commitment to Canadians that we were going to stabilize immigration here in Canada. That was then followed with the appointment of the minister we have today. I believe, as I know my colleagues believe, she has done an outstanding job at stabilizing our immigration system here in Canada. I do not say that lightly.
Let me give a bit of history as to what led to the issues that we had to face. In 2014, I happened to be the immigration critic for the Liberal Party of Canada. I was sitting in the opposition benches when Stephen Harper made the commitment to increase the number of temporary students. He wanted to increase it to numbers in excess of 400,000. There was a time when the Conservative Party recognized the value of immigration. That is long past, I must say, but there was a time when Conservatives did believe in it, and that was when Stephen Harper recognized the value of that contribution by increasing the numbers to over 400,000.
Let us go back to the pandemic. We were able to achieve the goal, and go a little further than that by a few thousand, going into the pandemic. The pandemic is not something that was unique to Canada. It happened around the world. There were concerns regarding people not being able to work in certain sectors. There were concerns around people leaving the country. Back then, even the Conservatives recognized that that was an issue. I do not recall any Conservatives standing up during the pandemic to say we should get rid of temporary workers. I do not remember that at all. Shortly after the pandemic, there was still a high demand, and those temporary workers were given extensions.
Now, a number of factors occurred, which led us to the last federal election. There was a serious issue that was caused by things such as policy announcements back in the previous administration regarding the pandemic and the consequences of the pandemic, including having to address the workforce.
Fortunately for Canada, we elected the right Prime Minister at the right time, and he recognized that we had to stabilize the immigration file. That is exactly what we have done. There have been some issues. We have seen many of the people here on a temporary basis apply for asylum. That is the reason why, prior to the summer, we introduced Bill C-2, which would have helped deal with issues like immigration. The Conservatives, at the time, chose to filibuster that legislation to prevent us from being able to stabilize immigration even earlier.
We had to bring in Bill C-12, which we were finally able to get passed towards the end of the year. We recognized the importance of dealing with the asylum issue, and Bill C-12 did that. After a lot of nudging, we finally got the Conservatives to agree to pass it. Do not get me wrong, I am grateful that they saw a sense of urgency on this issue.
Throughout this period of time, the current minister, a few weeks or maybe a month afterward, came to my home province of Manitoba and met with the minister responsible for immigration. Meeting with the minister of immigration demonstrated that the federal government has a role in working collaboratively with provinces and territories in good faith. I sat at the table with both ministers and listened to the dialogue that was exchanged.
A month or two afterwards, the minister came back to meet with some of the individuals who were being impacted by the immigration policy. What I saw—