44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 11, 2023 10:00AM
- May/11/23 10:01:48 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the government's response to 12 petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.
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- May/11/23 10:11:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time.
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- May/11/23 10:39:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it saddens me that the leader of the Bloc party is manipulating the immigration issue, which has built this country from coast to coast to coast, as a way to advance his cause.
Does the leader of the Bloc party not recognize that we have seen population growth in the province of Manitoba? Without immigration, our population would have decreased.
If we look at the French factor in the province of Quebec and in the country, there are more people speaking the French language today in Manitoba than there ever have been. The French factor in the province of Manitoba has been enhanced through immigration. For example, we see people of Filipino heritage and Punjabi heritage also speaking the French language. I believe that Manitoba is a strong advocate for the French language.
Why is the Bloc trying to use immigration in a mischievous way in order to achieve its own personal political objectives?
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- May/11/23 11:36:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether it is the leader of the Conservative Party or the member who just spoke. They seem to be in some sort of a dream world. They are trying to give the impression that the Conservatives did a good job on immigration. They need to get serious.
If we look at the sponsoring of parents and grandparents, the backlog was over seven years long. It was so bad, the Conservatives actually cancelled the program. They would not allow someone to sponsor a parent or grandparent. In one area, the program got so bad, in terms of sponsoring immigrants, that they actually deleted hundreds of thousands of people who were already in the process and had been waiting years. It was an absolute disaster, including the backlogs to sponsor a loved one. I do not know where they are coming from. They obviously are in some other form of reality.
When can we anticipate the Conservative Party to enter into the reality zone when it comes to immigration?
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- May/11/23 11:55:09 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to how Canada's rich diversity has actually seen expansion in many ways. I have used the example of Manitoba, where more French is being spoken than there ever has been in its history. With respect to the diversity, I have reflected upon people of Filipino and Indian heritage, in particular from the Punjab. I often meet with youngsters and they are actually speaking French or learning to speak French. I believe this is healthy in the long term for the French language.
Could the member provide his thoughts in regard to the way many immigrants see learning and understanding French as a wonderful thing?
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- May/11/23 1:15:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member underestimates the impact of the growth of the French language within the province of Manitoba, my home province, and I do not think this is unique to Manitoba.
Through immigration policies, and I made reference to this earlier, more people than ever are speaking French in the province of Manitoba. I attribute it to communities, whether they be Portuguese, Filipino or Indian communities. We can hear people speak French, Tagalog and English. There is a growing admiration for the French language, and we hear more and more people speaking it.
Would the member not recognize that, as opposed to trying to paint immigration in a negative light, we can see the benefits of the diversity of people from around the world who come to Canada, learn the French language and pass it on?
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- May/11/23 1:46:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to follow the Minister of National Revenue. If only I could speak as passionately as she does in French. What I really appreciated about the minister's speech is the fact that she talked about how immigration has been of such benefit for the province of Quebec, as it has been for the entire country.
That is why I am a bit disappointed in the leader of the Bloc party. In essence, what he is doing is taking the very important issue of immigration and the impact that immigration has had from coast to coast to coast here in Canada in such a wonderful way. We are a country of immigrants. Immigration helps Canada grow into the future. All one needs to do is talk about where the needs are in many different ways in many different sectors of our country and one will quickly come to the conclusion that for Canada to continue to prosper in the future, immigration policy is so critically important.
Today, we have the leader of the Bloc party trying to use this as an issue for the party's own personal cause, which is not in the best interest of Canada or Quebec. When I think of the French language and I think of my home province of Manitoba, today there are more people in Manitoba who speak French than there ever have been. If it were not for immigration, Manitoba's population would have been decreasing; it is because of immigration that our province has been growing. It is because of immigration that the French language today is spoken more in Manitoba.
With respect to our communities, we should be looking at how our diversity enriches our society not only economically but also socially. Therefore, in terms of the French language, bilingual schools and so forth, it is fantastic when I see someone who is young of Filipino heritage or Indian heritage or someone who speaks Tagalog, English and French; or Punjabi, English and French. Even in terms of the caucus, we just heard from the Minister of National Revenue. We also have a member in the Quebec caucus of Sikh heritage who is francophone. We have had other members speak of the importance of immigration not only to Quebec but, I would suggest, to our entire country. That is the issue that I have with the Bloc: Why would the members try to use this issue and try to portray immigration in any way as a negative issue when it comes to our heritage and the very social fabric of our society?
Then we have the Conservative leader, who responded to the resolution. It was hard to stay seated as he espoused the issues regarding immigration. It was hard to sit because I was the immigration critic in part during the Harper era when the leader of the Conservative Party was sitting around the cabinet table and Stephen Harper and that government decided to cut the parents and grandparents program completely. The leader of the Conservative Party is criticizing us on backlogs. The backlog for sponsoring a parent when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and the member was around the cabinet table was eight years. It got so bad that they actually said to the people of Canada that they were cancelling the program, so if someone wanted their mom and dad to come to Canada, they could forget it because they would not be able to come as landed immigrants.
That is something the Conservative government did when he was sitting around the cabinet table, and he is talking about backlogs. I still remember the issue when—
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- May/11/23 1:52:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we will find that members, at times, might raise their voices a little bit when they feel passionate about an issue. Members are always welcome to leave the chamber or turn down the volume if they so choose. I hope that point of order did not take any of my time away.
At the end of the day, when the leader of the Conservative Party tries to give the amazing impression that, somehow, the Conservatives understood immigration, it seems they really need to get a reality check when it comes to immigration.
I made reference to the cancellation of the parents and grandparents program. One day, they have this other area on immigration. Imagine that someone is in line and has been waiting for years. They want to come as an independent and to be able to do some good things in Canada. They have been waiting for years under the Conservatives. The Conservatives have an idea: Here is how—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- May/11/23 1:53:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us imagine this. We have thousands of people in waiting lines, being processed. The Conservatives say they do not want to deal with this particular stream, so what they are going to do is just delete them all. Imagine being in queue, waiting for years, and the Harper government decides that the waiting lines are so long and that one of the ways they can deal with them is just to delete them, to pretend they did not even exist. A lot of people had a difficult time with that one.
One can imagine why the Conservatives say that things are broken. We are still fixing the broken system that we inherited from Stephen Harper. That was truly broken.
The leader of the Conservative Party says he wants people to feel good, to feel as if they can make a difference. Do members know what he talks about? He talks about immigrant credentials. That is a very important issue. There is no doubt that it is an important issue. In fact, the government has spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars to assist provinces in getting immigrant credentials recognized, far more money than Stephen Harper.
What does the Conservative leader say today? He says that they are going to have a blue seal program, and that a person would come to Canada, write an exam and be a doctor anywhere they want in Canada. That is balderdash. That is absolute, underlined, “cannot say the word”. At the end of the day, the Conservatives do not know what they are talking about. They have no idea what all is involved. One cannot just say, “Here, write an exam and then we will allow you, as a doctor, to practise anywhere you want in Canada.”
An hon. member: That is how it works.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: No, that is not the way it works, Madam Speaker—
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- May/11/23 1:56:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the point is—
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- May/11/23 1:56:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I should start from the top.
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- May/11/23 1:56:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I was trying to clearly demonstrate is the fact that the Conservative leader has absolutely no idea, in terms of immigration policy or the types of things that would really make a difference, and we see that. I really wish I had the time and wish we were allowed to ask the Conservative leader questions based on the speech he delivered. Not only was he wrong on so many fronts when he tried to say that our system is broken, when in fact we inherited a broken system, but he also used the opportunity of the Bloc's motion to talk about the immigration policy of the Conservative Party. There is no Conservative policy on immigration.
I think he understands, to a certain degree, some of those hot issues, but he has no idea how to deal with them. If we want to talk about immigrant credentials, we have to work with the provinces and different stakeholders. By telling people who are here today, or would-be immigrants, that they just have to write an exam and they will get the so-called blue seal, trying to make a comparison to the Red Seal, the Conservative leader is doing a huge disservice. He is trying to give the impression that the Conservatives would do a better job on immigration, when their record is the absolute opposite. That is the reality of the situation.
That is why I found it very difficult to be in my seat while the leader of the Conservative Party tried to explain a Conservative policy on immigration. The Conservative leader needs to go back to the drawing board. He really and truly needs to look at ways to contribute to the debate on immigration, because he failed on all accounts coming into this particular debate.
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- May/11/23 4:27:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is being a little mischievous. If we were to take a look at the population of Manitoba back in the era in which he was talking about, our population was not that big. In fact, we looked like a little postage stamp.
The reality is that there are more people speaking French in the province of Manitoba today than there ever has been.
Because of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's multicultural policy and commitment to the French language, today we are seeing a multitude of different ethnic groups that are learning to speak French. French is a language that is loved and cherished in the province of Manitoba today because the national government has played a very important role in its promotion.
I personally come from an era where, sadly, French was discouraged. Today, that is not the case. Today, we have people of all different ethnic—
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- May/11/23 4:29:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I take a look at the province of Manitoba, where our numbers of immigrants, on average, are probably about 3,000 a year. We more than tripled that number, and the way in which housing, at least, in part, is being dealt with, we need to recognize that it is not just Ottawa.
Ottawa needs to step up and show leadership, and we have done that through the national housing strategy, which has hundreds of millions, going into billions, of dollars supporting municipalities and the provincial governments. The provincial governments, municipalities and the other stakeholders, all of us, have to step up to the plate to work together to deal with this. All of us want to see an increase in immigration numbers because we see the benefits of a progressive immigration policy. It adds so much value to our economy and to our Canadian heritage.
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- May/11/23 4:30:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important to recognize the importance of the contributions that immigrants make to our communities. In Manitoba, if it were not for immigration, our population would have declined. If it were not for immigration, many of the industries we have would not be there.
If someone takes a walk through any of our hospitals or care facilities, they will find people of Punjabi heritage, Filipino heritage and others, who make up the bulk of the workforce today. Whether it is in health care, the trucking industry or the trades, we will see it is often the immigration community fuelling the labour supply and ultimately contributing to our economy.
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