As an Albertan, I see it in my own community every day, and I would say two things about that.
First of all, we do have to work with HRSDC regarding labour market opinions and finding a way to ensure that when there are legitimate labour shortages, we can meet them, because when you don't, you hold back the entire country. Right now, we have $120 billion in projects in the oil sands alone--and I don't know how much in the rest of Alberta--$89 billion in B.C., and who knows what elsewhere, that are delayed because we can't find workers, and then there are all the service sector industries you've described. When they aren't successful, the country suffers.
The second thing, though, is that some provinces are doing some things with the provincial nominee program. For instance, in Manitoba, at one of the meat packing plants there, they're using the temporary foreign worker program to bring in 150 Chinese, and they've made the commitment to use the provincial nominee program to make them permanent residents at the end of that, providing they meet some standards, and deal with some of their labour problems that way. I think there's some potential for other provinces to use this model.
I don't want to duck my responsibility. We have to do a better job with respect to orienting our immigration policy to address labour market needs. It means working with HRSDC, and it requires us talking about general labourers and people in the service sector as well as people with skills that are better recognized.