Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is on record as having called on us to make investments to deal with the issue of irregular migration. We have listened, and what we have done? We have invested—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I will say on the record that there are no formal negotiations ongoing with respect to the safe third country agreement. Having said that, we have a partnership with the United States, our counterparts, where we talk about anything and everything related to border security, border integrity, and asylum, and these are issues such as information sharing and so on.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's about 36% I believe, so you can rest assured that any increases in the levels this year or in the next two years will have a corresponding increase in the amount of money we dedicate towards settlement services, so these newcomers can be settled and absorbed into Canada. I must say, though, look at our track record as well. Since we have come into government, settlement spending has increased every single year to deal with the higher levels. We are now spending record amounts of money on settlement services.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  As the member opposite knows, we are conducting a fundamental review of the policy to make sure that this policy continues to fit into our government's accessibility agenda. I have said it on the record and I will repeat it. The 40-year-old policy is out of step with our overall government's accessibility agenda, but we have to continue consulting with provinces and territories to make sure that we get it right.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Just to set the record straight, this policy has been in place for 40 years.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, our government is proud of our record with respect to refugees. We have redoubled the number of resettled refugees that we accept on a yearly basis. We have almost quadrupled the number of privately sponsored refugees that the previous government had, because we realize the important outcomes that privately sponsored refugees have in terms of making a contribution and restarting their lives in Canada.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, that is still 4,500 more than the Harper Conservatives had in their allocation. We are committed to ensuring we increase the levels of allocations for parent and grandparent sponsorships in 2019, increasing them further in 2020 as part of our immigration levels plan.

Business of Supply  Chair, the fact of the matter is that we have doubled the number of resettled refugees compared to the Harper Conservatives. We have quadrupled the number of privately sponsored refugees compared to the Conservatives' numbers. We have reduced the processing time of privately sponsored refugees by 25 months.

Business of Supply  Spouses and children waited longer. Refugees waited longer. Live-in caregivers waited five to seven years under the Conservatives' watch. We have improved processing times for privately sponsored refugees by 25 months, spouses by 14 months, live-in caregivers from five to seven years under the Conservatives' watch to 12 months under our watch.

Business of Supply  The fact is that we are making the necessary investments, after the horrendous cuts made by the Harper Conservatives, in border security operations and in faster processing of refugee claims. We are reuniting more families than ever. We are providing refuge to those who are persecuted around the world.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would also just remind the committee that it was our government that restored the program. The program was cut by the previous Conservative government, and we made a commitment to Canadians to restore that program because when the program was cut, the health care needs of asylum claimants or refugees did not disappear.

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  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.