House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 34% of the vote.
Citizenship and Immigration October 3rd, 2014
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should be ashamed of suggesting that a single refugee in Canada is not benefiting from generous health care programs, because that is the truth. We believe that the Federal Court ruling was flawed, which is why we will appeal it. We announced our intention to do so, and in the meantime we will continue to protect refugees and Canadian taxpayers.
Citizenship and Immigration October 2nd, 2014
Mr. Speaker, when the court's decision was announced this summer, we announced our intention to appeal. That is exactly what we have done. We will continue to protect the interests of and maintain protections for genuine refugees, as well as defending the interests of Canadian taxpayers. What we will not be doing in Federal Court, unlike the NDP, is defending our right to steal money from Canadian taxpayers.
Citizenship and Immigration October 2nd, 2014
Mr. Speaker, the moment this flawed decision was announced, we announced our intention to appeal. That is exactly what we have done. We have filed our notice to appeal. We will be aggressively defending the needs of genuine refugees, as well as the interests of Canadian taxpayers.
What we will not do in the Federal Court is argue, like the NDP, why it should not have to pay back taxpayers for money it stole.
Citizenship and Immigration September 30th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal campaign of absolute misinformation continues. There is no freeze on family reunification. This is a government that has worked through the Liberal backlog on parents and grandparents in an ambitious manner over three years.
The Liberals forgot about it for 13 years. For three years we have been bringing in record numbers of spouses, children, parents and grandparents. We have been cleaning up a mess that the Liberals created over more than a decade. They should apologize to the Canadian people for the mess they left us and not misinform them.
Citizenship and Immigration September 30th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite well knows, our economic immigration programs allow comprehensive sponsorship of spouses and dependent children. We brought in record numbers of economic immigrants to Canada with the highest skill levels, the highest education levels, the highest language skill levels in Canadian history. That is in stark contrast to the Liberal era of darkness in immigration, dominated by backlogs and years of processing for families and economic immigrants. We have reformed these programs, and that is helping spouses and families.
Citizenship and Immigration September 25th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, that was a spectacularly inaccurate question. There was not a shred of truth, not a single fact in place.
What is true is that this government has taken action to reduce backlogs and to speed processing times that were left to us by the Liberals. We have done it in the field of parents and grandparents where in only three years we have processed well over 50,000 applications. By the end of this year, it is going to be 70,000 applications, as well as over 40,000 super visas. We are talking about over 100,000 parents and grandparents here. That is double or triple the rate we ever saw under the Liberal Party. We have done that while taking terrorism seriously.
Citizenship and Immigration September 25th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, Canada has a fair and extremely generous asylum system. We are proud of the reforms brought in by this government, which have resulted in a reduction by 90% of asylum claims from safe, democratic, relatively affluent countries in the European Union and North America, so that we can concentrate those resources on people who really need them.
We are absolutely clear that the conditions in detention centres across Canada meet the highest international standards.
Citizenship and Immigration September 25th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, we are very proud of our asylum system, which is fair and equitable. We are also very proud of the reforms that we have put in place recently, which have produced very positive results for Canadian taxpayers. There has been a 90% drop in asylum claims from democratic, affluent countries in the European Union and North America. We are confident that the conditions in the detention centres we are using meet the highest international standards.
Citizenship and Immigration September 25th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, more than 1,500 Syrian refugees are present in Canada.
Citizenship and Immigration September 25th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, as the Leader of the Opposition well knows, Canada has been at the forefront of the response to refugee resettlement from Iraq for years now.
There are well over 18,000 resettled Iraqi refugees in this country. We have a plan to fulfill our full commitment to resettle 20,000 Iraqis and then to move on to resettle 5,000 Iraqi and Iranian refugees now present in Turkey. We are at the forefront of helping our Turkish allies respond to this unprecedented humanitarian crisis.