The labour shortage and the skills shortage are attributed to a number of things, for example, demographics. The barriers that exist within EI that I discussed with the working while on claim are an example. So when we do bring in temporary foreign workers there is a requirement that employers first try to get Canadians, but if they can't do that, yes, we'll bring in temporary foreign workers. We want to make sure they're treated fairly.
In that past, though, they were paid based on the average wage of that job in that area. Now, for there to be an average, there has to be a high and a low above and beyond that on either side. Unfortunately, many of the people who came in didn't have all the experience in that. They might not have been average in their qualifications. They might have been at the bottom. But the employers were forced to pay the average wage, while Canadians, with the same qualifications, could have been getting much lower. So, unfortunately, employers were being forced to pay temporary foreign workers more in many cases than they were paying Canadians.
We also recognize that the geographic area may have a range of salaries within it. So they may not all pay at the average. They may, in that particular area, pay below. So we've built in some flexibility to say that if employers are bringing in temporary foreign workers, they have the discretion to pay up to 5% less for unskilled workers or up to 15%...for skilled workers, but only if Canadians are in that same pay rate.
So the temporary foreign workers aren't going to be reducing wages. They're going to be matching Canadians instead of being given preferential treatment over Canadians. That's fair. That's fair to Canadians. It's also fairer to the employers who were paying a premium for something they weren't getting.