I want to start by thanking you all for coming today.
Ms. Pobric, you make a great point about assessment before people come here. That's a point I've been trying to make when I'm dealing with the frustration of people who just wish that someone would have told them before they came here. It's a significant issue.
Actually, I'd start by thanking all of your organizations. Across the board, it seems there's a real recognition of the need to just do better. When we're talking about a foreign credential referral office, it's interesting. We've had two sessions today and many different views, different ideas, on how we can improve the system.
I think that highlights a bit, Ms. Bose, what you were talking a bit about, the foreign credential referral office and maybe some concerns that you have. But I'd point out that much of the vision of that office is based on input from stakeholders, and of course there's such a variety of different ideas. Many of those stakeholders have identified that this referral office is a significant step forward. For example, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives talks about the constructive measures to do with temporary foreign workers programs and the referral office. The Canadian Council of Professional Engineers was very pleased with the creation of the referral agency. I want to focus on the fact that we talk about information sharing, and pathfinding, and referral, and one of the things that have been identified is this lack of information transfer and sharing that you talk about.
I would argue that the coordination.... I'm not sure, the way that you're using the term might be different from the way I would envision it, but I believe there needs to be a coordination with all of these different stakeholders. The whole point of the referral office is to be able to talk to people coming from other countries, or talk to people once they get here, and be able to have a central place to intake and then refer to the various stakeholders they need to talk to. That's one of the challenges. People don't even know where to turn. So this is a step forward.
Ms. Dhalla talked about her concerns and talked about a motion that was brought forward at the last second before the election in 2005--or June, I guess, so it was five months before the election. I would remind Ms. Dhalla that after 12 years, most of which was in majority government, many of the people in my riding had concerns that nothing had actually happened over the course of those 12 years. We had fallen so far behind that it's going to take a long time to overcome those years of neglect. I guess that's more of a statement than it is a question.
Mr. Davis, I want you to comment. Specifically with your organization, what does the referral office mean to you? How important is it in terms of the problems you've talked about?