What has evolved is the striking reality that we're under contractual obligations to provide labour to employers and to large energy clients, and if we can't supply, someone else will. So the temporary foreign worker program is a supplementary HR strategy. It's not a fix-all. It's a band-aid to not bringing in the right types of people for the right number of years, or training the right number of young people 10, 15, or 20 years ago.
So that program can bridge us, but it can't solve the problems. In the trades that I represent today, last year there were 5,000 temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada to fill shortages, so it really is a small number when you're looking at the industrial trades. It's difficult in regions of the country where folks are unemployed and don't have access to get there. If the people in your riding have the training and are really willing to go to Alberta, there's work for them. I don't say that in a derogatory sense in any way. If the people are trained up and they really want to work, there's work.