Thank you very much, MP Barlow.
I will say that the temporary foreign worker program, when I was appointed Minister of Employment and Labour, was flagged for me as one that had been incredibly mismanaged by the previous Conservative government, in fact, so badly that we had lost trust as a country in the program. Canadians were regularly outraged by the lack of protection for the temporary foreign workers we were using, whether it was in agriculture, food processing or in tourism. Also, it wasn't meeting the needs of employers either.
In fact, the Auditor General had quite a scathing review of the temporary foreign worker program. I believe this committee studied the temporary foreign worker program and made a number of fantastic recommendations about how we could move forward, restore the integrity of the program and make sure that we invest in the program so that we can actually expedite getting people here, but also, when we have people here, protect their rights as human beings. Quite frankly, I say all the time to employers, “Look, you know what we need for this program to succeed is for you to respect the program as an employer and your obligations underneath—”