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 Ca

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

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, t

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 withou

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 membe

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  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 mem

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 careg

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 spons

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 gr

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

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

Alcide Boucher  Mr. Speaker, it was with incredible sadness that I learned of the passing of Alcide Boucher of Bas-Caraquet at the age of 86. Mr. Boucher was very involved in his community. He served as a municipal councillor in Bas-Caraquet and a member of the local school board for many years

Official Languages  Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell for his interest in francophone immigration. Very early on in its mandate, our government reinstated the Mobilité francophone immigration program, which was cancelled prematurely by the previous government. This prog

Refugees, Citizenship and Immigration  Mr. Speaker, we are committed to fulfilling our obligations under the Official Languages Act. Language testing is used when individuals apply to certain permanent residence programs as economic immigrants. Our department is looking for ways to level the accessibility playing fie