Business of Supply  We have also reduced the processing time for live-in caregiver programs and family reunification from five to seven years under the previous Harper Conservatives to 12 months. I have made a commitment to the caregiver community that we will eliminate the remaining cases in the backlog by the end of 2018. Caregivers are an important segment of our population.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, we are very proud of the fact that we are once again making the necessary investments in more border security operations to allow the CBSA to do the work it was hampered in doing by the Harper Conservative cuts of $390 million. We are proud to be making the necessary investment of $74 million in the Immigration and Refugee Board so that refugee claims can be processed faster and people's lives will not be left in limbo for years and years.

Business of Supply  Live-in caregivers, for example, who provide an invaluable service to Canadian families, under the Harper Conservatives had to wait for between five and seven years to reunite with their families. We have reduced that to 12 months. We are reducing the backlog by 63% and have committed to eliminating it by the end of 2018.

Business of Supply  This includes $74 million that is being invested as part of budget 2018 into the Immigration and Refugee Board for faster processing of asylum claims so that those who require protection get to stay in Canada, move on with their lives, and contribute back to Canadian society, and those who are not legitimate refugees and who do not have a legitimate claim for refugee protection are removed from Canada. Our record on investing in border security operations is clear. The Conservatives cut border operations by $390 million.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, the member opposite's assertion that the Conservatives welcome immigration would have been believable if they had not left us with massive backlogs and long wait times for immigration. The member opposite's claim that he cares about U.S.

Business of Supply  These supports include counselling and mental health services provided through the very refugee health care program the Conservatives cut when they were in power. We made sure that we paced the arrivals of the survivors of Daesh, learning from the German example and advice, to make sure that each group of about 50 survivors would have supports in place before their arrival so they could be assisted in their long journey of restarting their lives in Canada.

Business of Supply  Chair, the fact of the matter is that it is the long processing times and huge backlogs that frustrate potential immigrants, which is precisely what we inherited from the Harper Conservatives. The fact of the matter is that we have made faster processing of immigration cases our priority and have delivered with respect to the spousal program. I will give an example. The live-in caregiver program went from five to seven years to 12 months under our government.

Business of Supply  We are proud of the work that we have done to reduce the processing times that were left to us by the Harper Conservatives. We understand the importance of reuniting families, which is why we have brought down the processing times for spouses and live-in caregivers.

Business of Supply  We are the government that continues to reunite families. We are the government that has eliminated backlogs left to us by the Harper Conservatives. We understand that investment follows talent. We have redoubled the number of resettled refugees from overseas. We have quadrupled the number of privately sponsored refugees.

Business of Supply  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.

Business of Supply  Therefore, we have a good track record, not only in increasing the number of refugees that we resettle into Canada, but also in the processing time. The fact is that the Harper Conservatives had unlimited intake but very limited output, which resulted in huge backlogs that we inherited. We are working very hard to eliminate that. We have already reduced the processing time of privately sponsored refugees by 25 months.

Business of Supply  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  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.

Business of Supply  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.

Business of Supply  We are making the necessary investments to increase the money available for resettlement and integration programs. That is a record the Conservatives simply cannot match.