I'm concerned to hear about the lack of a timeline. While I appreciate the ongoing monitoring, I'm sure that's cold comfort for the thousands of workers and families who are facing very difficult times in these two particular regions, so we'll certainly continue to push the government for immediate action on that front given that the needs are so significant.
I'd like to move to the issue of temporary foreign workers.
A couple of weeks ago we were very concerned to hear about the signing of permits in February with regard to certain seasonal industries that will allow employers in these industries to bring in an unlimited number of temporary foreign workers for 2016 as long as the workers' employment period is short-term and lasts for less than six months.
This flies in the face of the commitment that we heard from your government, Madam Minister, with regard to the importance of a review process prior to signing these kinds of permits. We know that the temporary foreign worker program has been rife with exploitation of workers who are the most disempowered in our country, and we're very concerned about these workers' lack of access to citizenship. We're most concerned about the fact that this decision to allow these permits took place without a review and, frankly, without much transparency whatsoever.
Yes, our committee is to begin conducting a review sometime before the summer break—although one could argue that this issue is so important that we could perhaps have taken it on sooner. Nonetheless, given this situation, I'm wondering if there are any written reports that guided you in making that decision to sign these permits and, if so, if there is a report that provides justification for these exemptions. Could you speak to these reports, could we see evidence of these reports, that will lead us to understand exactly what is going on here?