I think it's one of the most important issues we face. Clearly, in Alberta there's $120 billion in projects in the oil sands that are being delayed by worker shortages, there's $89 billion in B.C., and I don't even know the numbers for the rest of the country. So it is important. It's important to our long-term economic development and, frankly, it's a wonderful opportunity for people from outside the country to come and get Canadian experience, improve their language skills and, potentially, become permanent residents at some point.
This always raises the issue that, if we have them here as temporary foreign workers and we know they can make a contribution, is there a way to allow them to apply and come into the country from within Canada? It's a great question, and I've talked to many of you individually about this. I make no secret of the fact that I would love to see this happen, if it's feasible. These things are always easy to say and difficult to do. There are a lot of challenges to all of these big decisions.
Again, I would love to have some guidance from the committee on some of these things. I mean, there's no question that we're in a commodity boom and on the face of it, it looks like it could last for some time and we'll need workers of this kind. Maybe we need to start thinking along those lines. If the committee has specific ideas and guidance on that, I would love to receive it.