Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing before the committee.
Mr. Salkeld, I wrote down one of your quotes here. You talked about how your members would look to seek workers from outside the country.
Mr. Taylor, just a few moments ago you said that temporary foreign workers should be allowed to enter Canada with minimal paperwork.
So you both acknowledge that you need temporary foreign workers.
I want to read you a quick quote, and then I'll get right to my question. The quote is only one line:
We’ve been able to document literally hundreds of cases of temporary foreign workers who’ve had their rights in the workplace ignored and undermined: everything from wages that have not been paid, or where they wound up paid less than they were promised, hundreds of cases of workers being asked to pay exorbitant fees to brokers for the privilege of getting a low wage job. In some cases workers were brought in to work in the service sector, paying $6000 to a broker. These fees are illegal but they’re being charged anyway.
That quote is from a gentleman you probably know. His name is Gil McGowan. He is the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.
According to some statistics we've gathered, in terms of the dramatic growth of temporary foreign workers, we've gone from 20,000 five years ago to.... It peaked as high as 65,000 in 2009. So when this man, this Mr. McGowan, talks about foreign labourers and the experience in Alberta, he probably has a good idea of what he's talking about.
My question for both you gentlemen is this. From that quote, we understand there have been a number of problems with the bringing in of temporary foreign workers. What are your solutions to these problems? How do you get around them?