We can start by simply looking at the facts. The majority of the workforce that is going to be leaving are going to be leaving for retirement. We're estimating that about 30% of the remaining workforce is not remaining because of retirement; it's due to growth and the lack of labour to fill that need.
We've leaned on the temporary worker program for far too long, and we've done this without creating pathways to permanency. All of the investment that goes into bringing people into Canada, settling people in Canada and then having them unable to work in their area of expertise has cost our economy a lot of money.
I don't have the data in front of me right now, but you can pull this up quite easily to see the discrepancy between what people can earn and contribute if they're able to have their credentials recognized versus what they're actually earning and contributing because we're not recognizing credentials. That in and of itself is causing a massive gap.
As more and more people need to settle outside of urban areas because of the cost of living in the urban centres and start to settle into smaller centres, we're seeing those communities deeply impacted because they're not able to fill the jobs to keep their communities running, and they're also going to be facing problems with taking over small businesses. We're starting to see this as a really significant issue in smaller communities, where small and medium-sized businesses do not have people who are able to take them over and are shutting down. This is having a very significant impact on the community as a whole.