Status of Women  Mr. Speaker, our government committed to completely revamping the Conservatives' citizenship guide because it did not accurately and completely represent Canadians. The minister is holding broader consultations with a wider range of stakeholders, including national indigenous or

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. As I said in my speech, we are working with our various partners to put an end to these predatory practices. I am sure that the case raised by the hon. member is taken very seriously by our various partners. Again, if the hon.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I have to say that we too are handling a lot of cases in our offices. That is exactly why we want to improve the department's client service and the application process. I am from the riding of Acadie—Bathurst. There is very l

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, it would be very easy to provide a simple yes or no answer, but I also want to add that we inherited a completely broken system from the former government. We have made a lot of progress since taking office, and I would like to list just a few of the things we have

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. We did in fact make numerous improvements to client service. For example, we simplified the application forms. Also, as my colleague mentioned, we made changes to the family reunification program, and we reduced wait times, wh

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, we have received the report and will be reviewing it carefully. We will consider the proposed recommendations. Many witnesses were heard. I will reiterate that we want to tackle the problem of unauthorized consultants. The department is commi

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her comments. That is exactly what we want to do. We want to protect these people who are vulnerable to abuse by unauthorized consultants. The report was indeed tabled a few months ago, but it takes time to do things right. Our govern

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to take part in this important debate on the report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration entitled “Starting Again: Improving Government Oversight of Immigration Consultants”. I want to thank the committee for i

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing her concerns on this important issue. I also thank her for the work she is doing on this issue in committee. This is important, and I share her concerns. The excessive-demand provision is indeed an outdated policy, and my colleague

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Madam Speaker, as I said to my colleague, we are very involved in this file. The minister appeared before the committee, and he himself said that the policy was outdated because it was over 40 years old. We have consulted extensively with the provinces and territories on this iss

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Madam Speaker, there is a lot to that question. If the hon. member across the way is talking about a specific case, he knows full well that I cannot comment on individual cases. If he is talking about asylum seekers at the border, we are currently putting on awareness activities

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, Canada will always be an open and welcoming country for people seeking refuge. Our government will nevertheless ensure an orderly immigration process. We have always maintained that entering Canada irregularly does not guarantee status in this country. There are ve

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Mr. Speaker, as I just said, we have always maintained that anyone who crosses irregularly into Canada will not have guaranteed status in Canada. We are intensifying our efforts to raise awareness among people likely to have their temporary protection in the United States taken

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Madam Speaker, just to clarify, the data we presented today and the data on asylum claims the hon. member is referring to are not related. Those asylum claims are very different. They are not part of our immigration levels plan, which is completely separate from those asylum clai

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising this issue. The question she had submitted dealt mainly with the Canada-U.S. safe third country agreement. She wanted to know whether we planned to revisit that agreement. My speech will therefore focus primarily on the Canada-U.S.