House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2019, with 47% of the vote.
Citizenship and Immigration April 9th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, like all Canadians, we want a refugee system that helps and protects legitimate refugees. We therefore need to appoint qualified board members, and that is what we have done. We have appointed more than 100 IRB members. We chose them because they passed the test, something the Liberals did not require.
Citizenship and Immigration April 9th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, we agree with Canadians. Canadians want a refugee system that helps and protects legitimate refugees. To do that, we need qualified members of the IRB, not people who the Liberals hired regardless of their qualifications, many of whom were relatives.
Our candidates have to actually pass the test to prove they are qualified before they get appointed because that is what Canadians want, competence.
Citizenship and Immigration April 8th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to helping genuine refugees. That is why I recently announced in the House that we will be doubling the number of convention refugees that we receive from Iraq.
Coming to Canada is a privilege and not a right. To make sure that we have the best people in place to do that, we have made over 100 appointments to the IRB, but the difference between us and the Liberals is we make sure those individuals are qualified and competent to do their job. With us, they actually have to pass a test to get in.
Citizenship and Immigration April 8th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, as I have said many times, we want to welcome more immigrants, earlier and faster than before. We will designate which categories of people the country needs. We will respect the Charter and the law. We will welcome the people we need—to reunite families and to fill jobs.
Citizenship and Immigration April 8th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, let us see what Angelo Persichilli said about this in the Hill Times:
--what we don't need are lectures from the Liberals on this issue because, again, according to the numbers, not the demagoguery, they too badly mismanaged this issue for political reasons.
The difference between Conservatives and Liberals is that the former [the Conservatives] are handling immigration by trying to get results, the latter [the Liberals] to get votes.
Citizenship and Immigration April 8th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that it was her government that received the mandamus decision from the court. It said that going forward all applications must be processed under the rules that were in place at the time they were received. The Liberals lost that one in the courts.
Going forward we will be able to set categories after consulting with the provinces and territories, after consulting with other departments, and after getting cabinet approval. We will be able to set these instructions to guide our immigration officials so they can help us get more immigrants here faster.
Points of Order April 7th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, it is my recollection that, in this particular instance, the Liberal Party walked out of the House and did not vote for the motion.
Citizenship and Immigration April 7th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, where was that member when we were trying to protect the children of this nation between the ages of 14 and 16 by raising the age of protection? We are working for families. We have already improved the processing times for family reunification by up to 40%. We want to get families reunited faster and more skilled workers here sooner, after the Liberals did nothing for 13 years except balloon the backlog.
Citizenship and Immigration April 7th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, last week we spent an entire day discussing these amendments. The debates will come forward this week. It will be going to committee. The finance committee will be hearing from stakeholders on every aspect of this bill. We will be consulting with the provinces, territories and stakeholders before any instructions are issued.
Citizenship and Immigration April 7th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are just fearmongering.
Let me be clear. Instructions issued will set priorities for categories of applicants to be processed, in which only the categories should be done, not individuals. All the instructions will, of course, comply with the charter because that is the law. The minister will not be given any rights under these amendments to pick and choose individuals, to cherry-pick. The minister will deal with categories and will not be allowed to override immigration officers.