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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 67

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2022 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 67 - May/9/22
Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)
  • May/9/22 3:53:44 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-19 
Madam Speaker, I note that in the budget speech there was no mention of health care workers and no mention of the very important care economy. With this week being National Nursing Week, I wanted to ask the member about this. There is a top-up in the budget for health care, but the health care workforce is at a crisis point. Will there be additional investments made by the government to make sure that the labour shortages in the nursing profession are addressed?
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Context: House Hansard - 67 - May/9/22
Mr. Patrick Weiler
  • May/9/22 5:42:55 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-19 
Madam Speaker, I absolutely agree. In this budget, there is over $2 billion going to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to be able to deal with the backlogs. The idea is that by the end of this year, with these investments, we will get back to a normal service standard, as well as introducing new programs, such as an expedited temporary foreign worker program, which I know would be a game-changer for some of the hardest-hit sectors where there are major labour shortages, such as tourism in my riding. There is a lot here on immigration. Because of the backlogs related to COVID, we have a lot we need to do. With these investments and some of the changes that are being made to expedite the processes, we are going to be able to deal with some of the backlogs that are causing major issues.
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Context: House Hansard - 67 - May/9/22
Mr. Irek Kusmierczyk
  • May/9/22 7:16:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions and comments, but as he is fully aware, the world has been in a global pandemic for two years. In spite of this, we landed over 405,000 immigrants last year, which is an all-time record, to help with our economic recovery. As the Minister of Immigration announced on January 31, the government has implemented a number of measures to further improve client experience and modernize the immigration system. We have also committed an investment of $85 million to further reduce processing times and build on our progress to date. Most importantly, we will get back to our processing service standards in various programs by the end of this year. We are taking a whole-of-government approach to address labour shortages across our country. We have taken major steps toward this by processing more than 100,000 work permit applications in the first quarter of 2022, nearly doubling the number processed over the same period in 2021. As I mentioned—
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