Very definitely, as I think others have mentioned, agriculture is not an easy occupation. Meat cutting is certainly not easy, and retention is a major challenge in the industry; it always has been.
What we've found in our successful use of the program and the transition to permanent residency for foreign workers is that retention is much better than it has ever been before in our business, in our plants. Once workers obtain their permanent residency, they can certainly then move and work for anyone, but they are very loyal and they know that a lot has been invested in them. They become pretty quickly part of the community because of the outreach we're making to the community, to our partners with the help of the union, to ensure that their settlement is successful. In that sense it's a win for the workers.
In that's sense, it's a win for the workers and it's win for us as an employer, because, as I say, of the loyalty, the hard work, and the retention that we enjoy—and for the community. In these cases, smaller rural western Canadian towns that are often suffering depopulation can actually see it reversed. That's exactly what has happened in Brandon, Manitoba.
Overall it has been a very positive experience and one that is facilitated by permanency as distinct from thinking of these individuals as temporary.