Thank you all for attending.
In response to one of the comments Mr. Roberts made, just so you are aware, consultations are taking place across the country on this file. I was in Regina, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver last week. I will be in St. John's and Halifax this week.
Union representatives were invited. Only one came to any one of those meetings. I would encourage you, if you have issues to put on the table, and you claim here you are not being asked to participate, to step up and participate, because we're asking.
It was quite disappointing to have only one of your colleagues sit through these consultations. He was a great guy from the film industry. We were delighted to have him there, and he had some excellent and thoughtful comments.
The one thing I will raise.... This is a question which in some respects maybe the two of you should be answering to Mr. Sinclair as well as to the individuals who are still sitting in the audience from our previous panel. According to Statistics Canada—I will quote my source, and I would encourage others, if you are going to talk about empirical data, to please quote your source—in Manitoba the unemployment rate is 5.8%, and in fact it's lower in Winnipeg. It is 4.0% in Saskatchewan, which is essentially unemployment eliminated, because I think we all know how those numbers work. In Alberta it's 4.4%. Last week it was 4.2%. That's Statistics Canada data. That's empirical data. That's a quote from that reputable—I think we'd all agree—institution.
If that is the case, and there really is no one to find, then when Mr. Sinclair speaks about elevating the cost to his company and essentially putting Canadians out of work.... What I heard about all over western Canada last week and I'm confident I will hear, just as I did right after the budget, in St. John's yet again is, “We have five or ten temporary foreign workers, but that makes sure I can still employ 50 or 60 Canadians.” In fact, last week a meat processor in Calgary said to me that he employs 100 to 200 temporary foreign workers to make sure that 1,800 Canadians can still go to work.
How do we reach that balance? How high should Mr. Sinclair have to escalate his prices in order to keep people employed before going out of business? How does he reach the balance without going out of business to make sure Canadians...? I have to tell you he employs hundreds of Canadians, as do the people we spoke to earlier this morning. They support hundreds of Canadians. They train them every single day.
What's the tipping point in your minds of how much they should escalate their wages to make sure that Mr. Sinclair's Canadian employees still have a job?