Good morning, and thank you for being here. It was an interesting set of presentations to listen to.
I think it's fair to say that all political parties recognize the importance of immigration. I'm relatively new to this committee, but what has struck me since I arrived this year is that there are a lot of administrative and process problems. That's really the issue we as a committee, as a government, and as a Parliament need to grapple with it to figure out how to make the processes work better.
I think everyone recognizes we have a skills and labour shortage today and that is only going to get worse, so to speak, in the future. We had a delegation here from Finland a few months ago, and for the first time Finland is talking about creating an immigration policy. They are dealing with exactly the same problem in terms of the labour shortage and the aging population. Actually, it's a worse problem than we have here. So I think we're all on the same page there.
As I listened to the presentation about the agricultural workers, in particular, who are here for several months and separated from their families, just on a human level, I can hardly imagine that. I have two young children myself, and I am separated from them five days a week for half of the year and I know how difficult that is.
My colleague Nina misses her son so much she actually brought him with her today.
My question is for anyone who wants to answer it. For people who come in, perhaps agricultural or domestic workers, is one of the potential solutions that while they're in Canada they could actually apply for status to come here permanently? If the current system is left in place, where an agricultural worker or domestic worker comes to Canada temporarily and they make a decision that they want to permanently locate here and actually bring their family with them, is that part of this practical solution?