Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, I will repeat what I said for the hon. member's benefit. The safe third country agreement is based on the UNHCR-accepted principle that individuals should seek asylum in the first country they arrive in. Again, as the minister said yesterday in the House, the head of the UNHCR in Canada is on record as stating that the domestic asylum system in the United States is intact, and therefore it would be irresponsible, he did say irresponsible, to withdraw from the safe third country agreement.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to take part in this adjournment debate and explain the safe third country agreement to Canadians. The safe third country agreement is based on the principle that individuals should seek asylum in the first country they arrive in. This principle is accepted by the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Foreign Affairs  Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question. The member opposite talked about the 1,000 person cap. Let me begin by making it very clear and clarifying that there is not a 1,000 person cap on privately sponsored refugees. There is not a 1,000-person cap on privately sponsored refugees.

Foreign Affairs  Mr. Speaker, the main question was about the cap on the number of people. There is no 1,000-person cap on privately sponsored refugees. The 1,000-person cap the member mentioned in her question refers to new sponsorship applications for Syrian and Iraqi refugees by specific groups of sponsors.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Madam Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, the previous live-in caregiver program stopped accepting new applicants in 2014 and two new classes were established: the caring for children class and the caring for people with high medical needs class. For both these classes, family caregivers are not required to live with their employer.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Vancouver East for her question about pathways to permanent residence for caregivers. I also heard that she is doing a great job in the committee, and I look forward to working with her in my new role as parliamentary secretary. The member was absolutely right when she said that live-in caregivers provide very valuable services to Canadians.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, we are very pleased that all parties are working together to help the vulnerable victims of Daesh, which include the Yazidi, as shown by the unanimous support for the proposal to bring these Yazidi to Canada within 120 days, or by February 22, 2017.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise for the first time as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. I look forward to working with the new minister in his new role. He is doing an awesome job so far. I also look forward to working with members of the committee, especially the member for Calgary Nose Hill.

New Brunswick Ice Storm  Mr. Speaker, New Brunswick was hard hit by an ice storm that left over 133,000 people without power at the height of the crisis. The bulk of the outages occurred in my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, more specifically in the Acadian peninsula, where over 23,000 people were left without electricity, many of them for more than 12 days.

Fisheries and Oceans  Mr. Speaker, I believe the member opposite is well aware of our commitment to overhauling the Fisheries Act. As I said before, I believe that a simple cut back to the previous version of this legislation would not go far enough to protect the fish and fish habitat. As I said, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans is leading the review of changes to the act.

Fisheries and Oceans  Mr. Speaker, let me start by thanking the member opposite for his good work on the fisheries and oceans committee and in the House. It is a great honour for me to present to the House on behalf of the Minister of Fisheries Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard on a topic that is very important to the Minister and to our government.

Christian Brun  Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I inform the House that a remarkable man, Christian Brun, has passed away. Christian was the director general of the Maritime Fishermen's Union and had been working in the fisheries sector since 2004. He was also the president of the Canadian Independent Fish Harvester's Federation.

Fisheries and Oceans  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and good friend from Nunavut for his question. I share my colleague's views on sustainable, science-based fisheries. We think this can create some good economic opportunities for Nunavut. The programs on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts that our colleague referred to have enabled us to build strong relationships with first nations.

Fisheries and Oceans  Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns. Regarding his first question on whales, as everyone knows, our department is committed to ensuring the health and safety of aquatic environments. That is what we do in all of our activities related to aquaculture. Although it is extremely rare, it is an unfortunate thing when these marine mammals have adverse interactions with aquaculture operations and other marine industrial operations.

Island Fishermen Cooperative Association  Mr. Speaker, last week the Island Fishermen Cooperative Association in my riding of Acadie—Bathurst was awarded the 2016 Business of the Year award by the Conseil économique du Nouveau-Brunswick. The business was founded in 1943 by a coalition of co-operatives that wanted to build a cold storage facility in Lamèque in order to process cod.