Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Winnipeg North. As part of the review of the votes under Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in the 2018-19 main estimates, I want to talk about the government's priority to improve client services. High qual

Acadie-Bathurst Titan  Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to announce that the Acadie-Bathurst Titan have won the 2018 Memorial Cup. Last night, Titan defeated the Regina Pats 3-0 to bring the cup home to northeastern New Brunswick for the first time since their move to Bathurst in 1998. This

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, we understand very well the frustration of the affected individuals. We engaged with the community to better understand their concerns. Our absolute priority is to protect the health and safety of Canadians. For that reason, all immigration candidates are subject t

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, we know that people who come to Canada as tourists or to be with family are very important. As I said, we want those people to come to Canada. We also want people coming to Canada to be screened so they can come here safely. Our priority is to make sure tourists and p

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, what I can say is that, under our government, wait times have decreased considerably. For example, for spouses and live-in caregivers, processing times have dropped from 26 months under the Conservatives to 12 months under our government. We want to reunite families as

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, on the issue of making the 9,000-kilometre-long border almost impenetrable, I would remind members that the previous government slashed more than $400 million from border resources. The Conservatives are now asking us to put resources along the entire border which span

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Surrey Centre for his speech and for the excellent work that he does on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. It is unacceptable for spouses to be separated for a long period of time. That is why we promised Canadians that w

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, we made it possible for caregivers, who are a tremendous help to Canadian families, to be reunited as quickly as possible. We are committed to guaranteeing that these caregivers will become permanent residents as quickly as possible. We are also proud to have process

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, once again, we are very proud of this new director's appointment. We want to reduce wait times and expedite the process, which can sometimes be burdensome for applicants. That will help us to greatly reduce wait times and simplify our forms. Client service is one of

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleague from Davenport for her speech. I know she is passionate about the issue of immigration. I also want to thank her for the good advice she has given me. We have made significant progress in reducing wait times and inventories across perm

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, again, it is important to understand the distinction between these two very different systems, namely the asylum system and our regular immigration system. These two systems are totally different. The multi-year immigration levels plan will help us clear our backlogs

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, we have several programs to welcome the most talented people to Canada so they can contribute to our society and our businesses. We make these programs accessible for newcomers and we want to identify these immigrants so they can contribute to our economy as quickly

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I thank my colleague and good friend from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia for his speech and his question. Again, asylum seekers are not taking the place of other immigrants who come here or refugees that we have identified abroad. We have unveiled an historic mul

Business of Supply  Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for his question. We have a broad range of programs and we are working with more than 500 settlement service providers. I have had the opportunity to meet with many of their representatives across Canada since being appointed parliamentary secr

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 c