We're not against temporary workers, we're against Canada's immigration policy shifting towards “privileging” temporary workers as opposed to permanent residents, family reunification, and protection. That's the cornerstone. That's what our immigration policy really should be about, what we want.
I think we're all in agreement here that we have temporary workers and they need access to services, so we need to look at changing our eligibility criteria. Who is eligible for services, for settlement and integration services? Who should we be paying attention to as a civil society and as a sector that's funded federally and provincially--and in Ontario, municipally--in terms of ensuring that immigration is a privilege? All these things are connected.
One of the ironies for us is that we are not willing as a country to look at regularizing status, but we're looking at increasingly bringing in temporary workers. Do we really think that once these people are here they're going to leave and go back? And Canada doesn't have an exit policy. We don't know who leaves the country.
So at the same time the minister is claiming that this process is about reducing a backlog, it's in fact increasing the backlog.