Polish Heritage Month  Madam Speaker, I am joining the debate. I will read the parts of the motion that I want to talk about the most. First is “the importance of educating Canadians of all ages about the core values that Polish Canadians have imparted”. The second part I want to draw the attention of the House to is “the government should reflect upon Polish heritage for future generations”.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, after more than eight years, we have an immigration system with a backlog of over 2.2 million applications. It is shameful to make people wait to reunify their families. It is also shameful to make those with precarious status wait to find out whether they will be entitled to permanent resident status.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to the comments made by the leader of the Bloc Québécois. Behind all the numbers there are families, people who came to Canada or are waiting for permission to come to be reunited with their family, as was the case for members of my family.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, to hear the parliamentary secretary tell it, Canada's immigration system has been working well for the past eight years. It is perfect and working exactly as the government intended. However, we know the application backlog is 2.2 million and growing. It seems to get a little bigger every month.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member to comment on the issue of online applications submitted to the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Since September, the system has had a processing backlog of 2.2 million applications. A year ago, we were told that the new system that was created forces all people, whether in Canada or outside, to apply to change their immigration status or to come to Canada as a visitor, worker or student.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I serve with the member on the immigration committee, and I want to bring it back to that particular issue, which is the substance of the Bloc motion. There is an Auditor General's report that just came out about the immigration backlog and the eight immigration PR systems.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, my response will be about processing times. I actually do have a paper on that, and it is funny. The Auditor General's report found that, on average, privately sponsored refugees waited 30 months for a decision. Some of them waited two years before their file was even touched.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's question about residential, commercial and, of course, industrial infrastructure. Do we have enough highways, hospitals and clinics to provide the services people will need? The province of Alberta has the second-highest rate of interprovincial migration.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, the simple answer is no, that is not it. Pre-2019, I did not have constituents coming to tell me that they were worried about being able to purchase a home or being able to pay rent. It was not a problem until the Liberal government, with its NDP allies, decided that it was a good idea to overspend $600 billion during the pandemic, $205 billion of which had nothing to do with addressing the pandemic losses to our economy, jobs, housing issues, and our health care systems across the provinces.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be joining this debate. I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton Mill Woods, my colleague from up north, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party. I would be remiss if I did not start by addressing an issue that is top of mind for many of my constituents and for Canadians coast to coast.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, we are debating this motion about wraparound services for immigrants and newcomers coming to Canada. The minister was just in Calgary. He would know that the Centre for Newcomers in Calgary and the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society have had their funding cut. They need another $3 million to provide the key on-the-ground services for newcomers coming to Canada.

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, I am tabling a petition on behalf of constituents in my riding. They are drawing the attention of the House to the fact that Canada has now the highest rate of common-law relationships among G7 countries, with a share of co-residing common-law couples increasing from 6% in 1981 to 23% in 2021.

Carbon Pricing  Mr. Speaker, it has been eight long, miserable years with the NDP-Liberal government. A year ago, its members voted to keep the carbon tax on home heating, and now they are in full panic mode. With polling numbers in free fall, their new re-election slogan is “elect them and they will only quadruple the carbon tax right after the next election”.

Carbon Pricing  Mr. Speaker, obviously, the members on that side are in panic mode because of falling numbers in the polls, so they are serving up election gimmicks. This week's food bank report says that one in six Canadians is one of the “working hungry”. They are working and going to the food bank.

Human Rights in Iran  Madam Speaker, Shilan Mirzaei is a prominent Iranian human rights activist who has been wrongfully arrested for her defence of Iranian refugees in Turkey and her strong voice for human rights. Worse still, her arrest was made at the request of the terrorist regime in Iran. Mirzaei is now being held in a deportation centre in Turkey.