In fact we heard of some of the allegations concerning workers, especially in your area on the RAV line in Vancouver. I will say we are concerned about that particular incident. Of course, we don't take those allegations lightly, and they are not acceptable. However, in the case of Vancouver, we asked our B.C. counterparts, and provincial officials have asked for proof of these allegations. We've yet to receive anything, so it's difficult to comment on that particular incident.
However, I will say that HRSD and Citizenship and Immigration do have a responsibility to ensure that temporary foreign workers are being treated fairly and that they are receiving competitive wages. We would encourage officials from CIC and HRSD to ensure those responsibilities are met.
I know there's an underlying statement that in particular some of the unions make when referring to temporary workers, which is that this is just a way for construction industry employers to bring in cheap foreign labour. I want to say that is absolutely not the case. In fact it doesn't make sense. It's very expensive for a company to go out and find temporary foreign workers. There are relocation, travel, recruitment, and retraining costs, none of which you have with the Canadian worker.
In short, should we be accepting any of these sorts of unfair treatment? Absolutely not. It is an absolute responsibility of the federal government to ensure that this not happening. However, those potential problems should not be dissuading us from ensuring that temporary foreign workers are a source of future labour supply.