House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2025, with 55% of the vote.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, under the Conservatives, spousal sponsorships used to take 26 months or more, depending on the country of origin the spouse was coming from. We have made that a priority. We have put extra resources and staff to process spousal sponsorships. We have cut the processing time from 26 months down to 12 months. We have eliminated the backlog in the spousal sponsorship program.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, the fact is that we have reduced the backlog by 63% in the live-in caregiver program and we have significantly cut processing times for caregivers, from five to seven years under the Conservatives down to 12 months under this government.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, we have reduced the processing time for work permits from three months to three weeks and we have issued over 13,000 work permits to asylum seekers in Quebec alone.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, what I said was that as part of budget 2018, we are allocating $173.2 million on the issue of irregular migration and that $74 million of that $173.2 million will go to the Immigration and Refugee Board so that refugee claims can be processed faster. Those who are found to have a legitimate claim for refugee status get to stay; those who do not have a legitimate claim for protection get to be removed from Canada.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, as announced in budget 2018, we are investing $173.2 million in further border security operations as well as faster processing of asylum claims by putting $74 million of that into the IRB for faster processing of refugee claims.
The fact of the matter is that the department spent in 2017-18 a total of $23.9 million on irregular migration.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, we have been able to respond to the unusual increase in asylum claims last year by being nimble, by reallocating resources and staff to make sure that we address pressure points. We were successful in doing that. I congratulate the IRCC, CBSA, RCMP, and all the other agencies that were able to handle professionally the extraordinary situation that we faced last year.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, I join the hon. member in agreeing with her on the fact that the Conservatives are deliberately misleading Canadians on this so-called queue-jumping. That is not happening. There is no queue-jumping.
Refugee claimants are processed by the independent quasi-judicial Immigration and Refugee Board. All other immigrants, whether they are family class, overseas resettled refugees, or economic immigrants, are processed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, yes, the hon. member is correct. We have allocations in our multi-year levels plan for protected persons, and that is the stream that processes successful refugee claims from people who have been found to have genuine refugee cases. Those who are not found to have genuine refugee cases are then removed from Canada and therefore do not affect the permanent residence numbers.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for this question. That is a really important point. There is absolutely no queue-jumping when it comes to processing of asylum claims, and she is absolutely right that the Conservatives are muddying the waters. They are creating fear by pitting one group of people who are accessing our immigration system against another. That is the politics of fear and division that we have abandoned and that Canadians resolutely rejected in 2015. I congratulate the hon. member for raising that point.
Business of Supply May 24th, 2018
Mr. Chair, the hon. member knows, or should know, that asylum seekers access provincial social services. The federal government is responsible for providing settlement services to permanent residents, overseas resettled refugees, and family class and economic immigrants, while asylum seekers come under the responsibility of provincial governments. However, we do assist provinces with social service costs through the Canada social transfer.