Sure.
Thank you very much for the question. It's an important question, because if we can make progress on this, it will mean that people who today are locked into certain provinces because their credentials aren't recognized will be able to move freely and work and see their wages rise.
And you're right, we're in a very hot labour market, but because of those inefficiencies, sometimes we can't fill jobs on the one hand, and people who have skills and abilities unfortunately can't use them to the degree they could. So we lose out, and it's probably something worthy of a discussion by this committee.
We are doing a number of things. First of all, under Minister Bernier's and Minister Flaherty's leadership, discussions are going on with the provinces with respect to labour mobility. Our department is also taking steps. One of the things we announced in the budget is new labour market agreements with the provinces, which will ensure we provide them with $500 million a year in new funding to help them reach people who don't have access to employment insurance and create programs that will allow those people to succeed.
We will also be talking to the provinces at the same time about the need for them to work with us to drop these barriers so when people get these skills and abilities they can move more freely around the country and realize their life goals and become successful. I think it's our obligation as parliamentarians to work toward that.
So there are a number of different initiatives under way.