Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, these are issues of great concern, not only to the departments here today but also to our provincial colleagues. In fact, as Mr. Kenyon has mentioned, information-sharing agreements with the provinces are being developed to help us share information around infractions not only of federal statutes but also of provincial statutes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  These are very difficult issues, Mr. Chair, and there's no denying that more work needs to be done in these areas. When it comes to the activities of recruiters overseas, it's very difficult for CIC to have enforcement action taken against foreign-based recruiters. For example, we would require the cooperation of local law enforcement agencies that may in fact be operating in full compliance with local legislation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, just to clarify, in 2006, while HRSDC processed 165,000 labour market opinions, in fact, only 112,000 temporary foreign workers came into Canada, and of that number, approximately half were high-skilled and half were low-skilled. With regard to the selection criteria and avenues for low-skilled individuals to come into Canada, there are a number of avenues that are open to them.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, neither CIC nor stakeholders are really able to determine the exact number of persons who are in Canada illegally, including undocumented workers. There is no hard data, as I said in my opening remarks, to accurately support an estimate of undocumented workers or illegal persons.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to thank the committee for its interest in these issues. The issues of undocumented foreign workers and temporary foreign workers are complex and involve a number of stakeholders across the government of Canada, provincial and territorial governments, municipalities, employers and labour.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Budget 2007 did allocate funding of $50 million for HRSDC and CIC to deal with growing volumes of temporary foreign worker applications. Those resources will be deployed to deal with those growing volumes. With regard to the question around objective evidence and what would constitute objective evidence, we would be looking at published research that has been peer reviewed as a key source of any evidence that would be used in the development of instructions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely, Mr. Chair.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. What is foreseen here is that instructions would be published in the Gazette and come into force on the date of publication or on a date specified in the publication. Similarly for revocation, notice would be published. And for refusals, the decision to refuse needs to be concurred in by a second immigration officer.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I said, low-skilled workers encompass about half of the movement every year.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Bill C-17, Mr. Chair, would allow CIC officers to refuse a work permit to someone because of their own characteristics. Where they may face that abuse or exploitation right now, the act and regulations are very directive that subject to the criteria being met, a work permit shall be issued.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, as part of our ongoing work with HRSDC, we are looking at how we can work to provide better surveillance of employers who use the program and to impose sanctions on those who would abuse it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is a very good question, Mr. Chair. My response would be that we know that about one-half of all temporary foreign workers who come to Canada every year are what we would call low-skilled: people who are required to have high school education or less to perform the work that's being offered in Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, as I said earlier, Bill C-17 is one of the tools we wanted to add to our toolbox. For example, we work with our colleagues from Human Resources and Social Development Canada on developing a framework for overseeing employers in Canada, in cooperation with the provinces.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, on the questions of the guidelines issued by the Minister, they would have to be based on objective research. For example, if we received a report from a province indicating that a particular industry or employer was causing problems, that might be one of the factors taken into consideration in developing guidelines.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, we would be happy to provide statistics on the temporary foreign worker program. The difficulty we have with projections is that the program is completely demand driven as employers ramp up their need. We do not set targets for the number of temporary foreign workers.