International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  Without a doubt. I was trying to be diplomatic.

International Trade committee  I don't think there's any good reason why temporary foreign workers should be brought into the country to work in regions of the country where we have high rates of unemployment. I know one of the reasons the Liberal government has now agreed to a review of the temporary foreign worker program is that they're being pressured by employers.

International Trade committee  Yes, I was trying to be diplomatic. When there are high levels of unemployment and an employer's still not able to attract people to fill those jobs, then instead of looking for government to introduce programs that will allow them essentially to defy the economic laws of gravity, the employers should pay more.

International Trade committee  There's a debate among labour economists on what would constitute full employment. Some say 4%. Some say it's lower. Certainly, as it stands in Canada right now, we are not at full employment, even in areas of the country that traditionally have had the most robust labour markets.

International Trade committee  The farm workers program is an example of what can happen over long periods of time in eroding the quality of jobs.

International Trade committee  I think we should take a look at it. There was a time in Canada when Canadians filled agricultural jobs. I think of Stompin' Tom Connors, who was famous for singing and stomping, but before that he was—

International Trade committee  —an itinerant agricultural worker, and he made a living at it. Because we made it so easy for agricultural employers to get access to cheap and exploitable workers from places like Mexico, we transformed what had been an occupation that provided a living wage for Canadians into an occupation that paid so little that no Canadians wanted to do it.

International Trade committee  The short answer is, yes, there have been many studies, and I can provide them to the committee. I won't go through the whole list, but I can provide you with probably seven or eight studies done by credible academic sources that demonstrate quite conclusively that the temporary foreign worker program has been used to suppress wages, and that it has increased unemployment rates in areas of the country where employers have used that program most aggressively.

International Trade committee  I could spend some time talking about provisions to protect the interests of Canadian workers and to make sure that these provisions in the agreement weren't used to distort the Canadian labour market. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm told that the government now is facing essentially a yes or no proposition.

International Trade committee  I think it was poorly negotiated. I think that a lot of these problems could have been dealt with if the previous government, the Harper government, had taken a different approach to negotiations. We know, for example, that during that whole multi-year period when they were negotiating with other TPP nations, there were all sorts of people other than governments behind closed doors with the negotiators.

International Trade committee  Yes, in many ways the categories that have been outlined in the TPP agreement are misnomers. They talk about business persons and investors, but as I said in my presentation and as we outline in our legal opinion, it's clear that the business category actually includes or could include many more people than just those coming to Canada to conduct business.

International Trade committee  Yes. When the agreement explicitly provides for the indefinite extension of what are ostensibly temporary permits, then you run the risk of actually having people coming here indefinitely, and they would be in a position to fill jobs permanently as opposed to on a temporary basis.

International Trade committee  I'm skeptical that the agreement would be truly reciprocal, and I say that based on our experience with other trade agreements. The federal youth exchange program, for example with countries like Australia, has been skewed heavily towards workers coming to Canada with only a handful going the other way.

International Trade committee  The mechanisms that will allow the TPP to suppress wages are similar to the mechanisms that allowed employers to use the temporary foreign worker program to suppress wages. But I think it's worse, and that's why in my presentation I said that the TPP is essentially the temporary foreign worker program on steroids.