Thank you very much to everyone for your presentation. As my colleague Mr. Savage said, the report that's been done by the Canadian Council on Learning is very thorough and I think very beneficial in ensuring that we as a country have a strategy to address the issue of post-secondary education and access.
I want to speak about an issue—and I believe I only have about three minutes—that is very near and dear to me, and especially to my constituents in Brampton—Springdale and I know to a number of other Canadians across the country. That is the issue of foreign credentials recognition.
We have a number of immigrants who come to Canada with hopes and dreams and great aspirations and who are looking for this great life. When they get to Canada, they very quickly realize that with all of the training they have taken in their respective countries, whether they're doctors, engineers, lawyers, or nurses, their qualifications are not recognized; they have difficulty in being accredited and, most importantly, in getting integrated into our labour market workforce.
On Fridays when I see my constituents I hear a number of stories—the chicken and egg sort of story, where they have the experience and have been recognized and accredited, but when they go to employers, they want Canadian experience, but no one is willing to give them that Canadian experience.
In 2005 I put forward a motion in the House of Commons, which was supported by most of the parties in the House, in regard to having a foreign credentials recognition secretariat that would bring together the provincial regulatory bodies and other stakeholders to ensure that it was a sort of one-stop shop.
I think the Canadian Council on Learning mentioned in its presentation that it's a jurisdictional sort of context, not only in education but in other areas, that perhaps results in a barrier being formed. When I was putting together the motion there was a lot of apprehension, in the sense that we had 17 different federal government departments operating in silos and no one knew what the other one was doing. The motion was as a result of that and also the frustration that a number of new Canadians have in the country.
When the Conservatives were elected, they spoke about not the secretariat but the development and creation of a Canadian agency. Unfortunately we haven't seen a lot of progress on that, much to the frustration of people, and they're again being upset. I think it is a question of Canada's economic productivity and future potential.
My question, both to the CLC and also to Mr. Cappon, is this. What do you think the mandate of a secretariat or an agency should be? How should they be able to assist new Canadians and also employers in ensuring that when these Canadians are coming here with these qualifications they're not driving cabs or working as security guards? It's really a question about our economic prosperity as a nation.