Thank you very much for the question.
This is a very topical issue. We're definitely having shortages in Alberta and B.C. in particular, but we're having them right across the country in different fields and in different sectors. Part of it is what I alluded to earlier: we do have an aging workforce. A lot of them are retiring at relatively young ages, and we're having a shortage, particularly in the skilled trades and some professions.
We're doing a lot of work on those fronts. One is in terms of labour mobility--getting people who are qualified in let's say Ontario, Quebec, or New Brunswick to have those qualifications recognized in Alberta. We're very supportive of the Red Seal program that provides national recognition to credentials earned at the provincial level.
One of the challenges we have is that there are over 400 different regulatory bodies across the country, each under provincial jurisdiction, each with its own provincial perspective. We're trying, and we hope, through consultation, to get them looking nationally. We are encouraging that kind of labour mobility.
To help out with those things, we're also working hard on the foreign workers program; we're working with the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration on this very closely. We're looking at streamlining that process so that foreign workers can be brought in when Canadian workers cannot be found to fill the jobs. Let's make sure that the Canadian employers have to first of all prove they haven't been able to find these people in Canada, and second, they have to make sure foreign workers are competitively paid, just as they would pay any Canadian resident.
Finally, we're working on foreign credentials recognition. This is a two-way thing. It is to help us help people who would be immigrants to Canada. It's to help them recognize what their qualifications are in Canadian terms, and where they could best be applied.
So there are a number of things we're working on to make sure we are getting the right incentives for people to work in the right place in their chosen field.