Thanks for the question. It's great to have such a strong team of parliamentary secretaries on this committee and in service of this portfolio. Thanks for all your work across the board.
We all hear from immigrants who are not able to work, for one reason or another, in their chosen fields, in their fields of qualification, who were often not told when they came to Canada in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s what would be required to qualify in their field.
So we're really focusing on two major changes, and they're not fully implemented, so these will be recurring subjects I think for us in this committee to resolve this issue.
First is foreign credentials recognition, and not just Canada's recognition of the credentials that other people have, but a clear signal to any candidate for immigration, as soon as they express interest in the system in coming to Canada, that this is what they will need to do to be able to work in their field in Canada. This is the organization that will qualify them. This is the course they will need to requalify, and it will be longer, shorter, depending on the profession.
We know we have challenges in Canada. The throne speech talks about not just recognition of credentials from outside of Canada, but recognition of credentials within Canada, where we all know it can be complicated to move from province to province or territory to territory.
Secondly, it is vitally important that we reduce the waiting time for applicants. In these technology industries where specialized needs are changing month by month, a six-month waiting time is much better than a year or two years or three years. It will allow us to recruit people whose skills are in demand around the world but who right now aren't necessarily attracted to coming as immigrants to Canada because our program is not as fast and flexible as we need it to be.