Business of Supply  Madam Chair, as you know, there are a certain number of official ports of entry in Canada, ports of entry that were designated and established in partnership with the United States. I think the Conservatives' idea of designating the entire 9,000-kilometre border as an official crossing is completely ridiculous, particularly since we know that it would require an enormous amount of additional resources and would be practically impossible to do.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, as we have repeated many times this evening, and as you know, we have developed a plan with our partners, including provinces, territories, municipalities, and non-governmental organizations, to manage these irregular border crossings. We have also conducted awareness campaigns in the United States and overseas to teach people who want to come to Canada about our laws and give them the facts before they arrive and seek asylum.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, once again, a number of members from this side of the House went to the United States to talk to various communities about our laws before these individuals come to Canada. We also travelled abroad with various American counterparts, with whom we consulted. The minister also went to Nigeria to talk to our Nigerian counterparts and American officials in an attempt to stop such a large number of U.S. visas from being issued to Nigerians, who then cross into Canada.

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I thank my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge Park for his speech and for the excellent work he does on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I also thank him for the clarification he provided on a number of subjects. Let us be clear. Asylum seekers are not taking the place of immigrants from other immigration sectors nor of the refugees that we resettled from abroad in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, as is the case for my colleague, this program is close to my heart because I also represent the Atlantic region. This program is excellent for Atlantic Canada and will make it possible for us to welcome to Canada 2,000 immigrants a year for the next three years. The Atlantic provinces have an aging population and we need the Atlantic immigration pilot initiative to address these challenges.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, the strategy is working well. As of December 31, 2017, more than 4,400 applications had been approved under the global skills strategy, which was launched in June. Applications are processed in two weeks for highly skilled employees. Clearly, this program is working very well and we are proud of it.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from St. John's East for his question and the excellent work he does at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. The arrival of newcomers to Canada is very important, especially when it comes to economic immigration, since we have to meet our labour needs.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I thank the minister for his clarifications. In his speech, the minister said several times that family reunification was very important and that it was a big immigration priority for our government. This seems logical to me, since the families that come to Canada are key to growing our economy and filling our country's labour needs.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I thank the minister for that excellent speech, for providing clarification on a number of issues, and for mentioning the department's and our government's accomplishments on the immigration front. The minister left out one accomplishment, however. I would like to highlight his much-improved French.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, it is very disappointing to once again hear the opposition conflate the two systems. The asylum system is very different from our regular immigration system. They even have different leaders. Some TV shows said that the systems were the same, which is very misleading.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, it is a bit funny to hear the Conservatives lecture us on this, when they are the ones who slashed over $390 million from our border security. All I can say is that we are committed to keeping Canadians safe. Every individual who crosses the border in an irregular fashion is subject to very strict controls.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech and her work at committee. Does she think that refusing an application from someone who has an intellectual disability, such as a child with autism or Down's syndrome, reflects our Canadian values?

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I will repeat what I said earlier: the cases currently in the system will be reviewed in accordance with the new policy. Older cases will not be reviewed, but, once again, claimants may file a new application under the new policy. We sincerely believe that with these new measures, people who file new applications will have more chances to be accepted.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Yes, as he said, with respect to caregivers, we have considerably reduced wait times for reuniting these families. Wait times for family reunification have dropped from 26 months under the previous government to 12 months under our government.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. Once again, I believe that the changes we have made to this policy are a step in the right direction because they update a 40-year-old policy. We have accepted the recommendations of certain groups who asked that we review this policy.