I thank you for the question.
We have been arguing for some time that a secretariat could play a useful role, because the reality is that almost all the professions we're struggling with in regard to recognition are provincially regulated.
The Ontario government recently put forth what I thought was a very constructive strategy on how they're going to start to now deal with it. I also believe the federal government has some tools and levers available.
In the immigration agreement that the provinces have signed with the federal government, we have always argued there should be some clearly delineated responsibilities for the provinces that are receiving the immigrants, that the provinces must make a commitment that they will assess their credentials in a short period after they arrive in the country. The provinces certainly have the authority to deal with those self-regulatory bodies that have been an impediment to getting foreign credentials recognized within their jurisdictions. Some of them are self-regulatory and some are provincially regulated.
This is an ongoing issue that we have been arguing for some time. I think a secretariat could play a useful role in how we integrate the provinces in using perhaps experience from one province that has been useful in achieving some successes compared with that in other provinces that are still not addressing the question, despite the fact that we continue to attract almost a quarter of a million immigrants every year and they still can't seem to find employment within the profession they came to Canada to work in and were promised they would be working in.
It is a complicated problem. Many governments have talked about this. The reality is that we haven't made progress. I believe that a secretariat or some structure that will bring the provinces and the federal government together will certainly make some differences in how we are addressing the issue. Certainly across the country it has been addressed in very different manners from coast to coast.