Finance committee  I think that is a good idea. It's something I've considered. I don't know what the percentage is, but I think in situations where 100% are temporary foreign workers, I would think that would raise alarm bells. This might be a questionable enterprise in this regard.

Finance committee  I firmly believe we have a choice. II'm not advocating this, but we're talking hypotheticals. If we hypothetically decided to stop temporary foreign workers for less educated workers, it would hurt some individuals and some firms. I don't think it would have a large impact on the

Finance committee  I guess, rightly or wrongly—I know we don't have much time here—I would probably exempt the agricultural sector because I don't see big problems in it. It's a bit of a cop-out, but we've had that program for a long time. Most of the stories don't seem to be coming from it. But

Finance committee  I support that kind of direction. I've made this point clear, I think, in other venues that temporary foreign worker programs make a lot of sense in booming regions of a country, where you might have to see very large wage increases in order to attract workers from the less succe

Finance committee  There's a lot there to talk about. I'm very much making a distinction between immigration and temporary foreign workers. I think they're two very different programs.

Finance committee  I think they both still serve the same purpose in the sense that they're both sources of labour supply or labour services to our economy, but with immigration we're making a commitment to bringing a person in and allowing them to stay permanently. We typically do this without any

Finance committee  I would say it depends on the wage rate. I think if employers pay a high enough wage, they will find a supply of local labour.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  It's hard for me to say. Certainly, historically we've had a significant problem with enforcement. To be fair, I do think the changes that Minister Kenney has implemented have been, as I said, in the right direction. It's hard for me to comment on whether there should have been

Finance committee  I've already mentioned that it could eliminate wage growth for these workers. We haven't had a large amount of wage growth over the last 30 years in Canada. If every time we see wages going up, the firm continues to advertise at the past wage or the current wage without account

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Sure. I'm familiar with Dominique's work. I think the issue there, as I understand it, is that it's just very difficult to know.... As I said, if you think about the process, the employer advertises a vacancy at a particular wage. If no one applies, or no one suitable applies,

Finance committee  There are a couple of things I'm comfortable saying. One thing I'm certainly comfortable saying is that with a large temporary foreign worker program, it's hard to see how you get wage growth. If you imagine a situation where the economy's growing, wages should tend up. If employ

Finance committee  I think we should look at raising them, but as I said earlier I wouldn't do a fixed fee across the board. I think Mr. Lavoie mentioned something earlier about employers being willing to pay more to bring in qualified temporary foreign workers. One way to think about this is inst

Finance committee  I'm not an expert on the details of the history of that part of the program, but as has already been articulated, the program expanded quite significantly over the 2003 to 2010-12 period. To me, it doesn't seem like it tightened up. It seems like it expanded and became easier. Th