Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 19th, 2007

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

We had talked about holding a meeting in my riding, in Vaudreuil-Soulanges, rather than Montreal. I live 15 minutes from Dorval airport, but, I am not in Montreal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

That would be a fine idea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'd go along with that.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I'd love to visit Meili's riding.

The other issue is that we should really touch base in the Maritimes. For the longest time it was thought that the Maritimes had too many workers and not enough work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We touched on that.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

The last time we toured, some of the people who came forward really impressed me. They have a problem with temporary workers in particular. I was reading that a fishery plant in P.E.I. was in danger of being closed because the temporary workers they tried to get in from Russia were held up. Other folks in the Maritimes suggested we send all of our undocumented workers to the Maritimes, because there is a real recognition that immigration comes along with economic activity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We did touch on that in our meeting. I think it was agreed that it wasn't as much of an issue in the Maritimes as it was in these bigger centres. But I'm open to it. I have no objection at all to heading down home, provided the meeting is on a Thursday so I'm home for the weekend.

[An hon. member]

Maybe it could be in St. John's.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes. We can put that on there and see what happens.

Does the committee want to specify a city, like St. John's maybe?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Are we going there? We still haven't resolved whether we should go there or not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Would people like to go down to Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, or Nova Scotia? I'm easy either way. What would you like to do?

Next on the list are Mr. Wilson, Mr. Siksay, and Mr. Alghabra.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thought we had also discussed, on the trip to Vancouver, making some time to go to Whistler. There is a big problem with labour shortages there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Let's deal with Andrew's point first. Does anyone want to go to the Maritimes?

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I'd prefer to see what interest there is from the Maritimes or Atlantic Canada before we schedule a trip there, given that none of the folks on the list right now are from that area. Mr. Telegdi makes the point that there have been some specific incidents. As the Atlantic Canadian on the committee, maybe you could do some checking to see if there is a critical mass there that might make it worthwhile.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That's a good point. Leave it with me. I'll get back to the clerk and report to the committee at a later date.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

If I can go back to the point I was raising earlier, if we're in Vancouver it's an hour and a half drive to Whistler. I think it would be well worth our while to go up there to get a sense of how the economy is booming. There are restaurants that can't open and construction sites that are slowing down. Additionally, we'd be able to tour some of the 2010 Olympic venue sites.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Alghabra

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Let's make a trip to the Maritimes if there's interest. If there are a lot of witnesses from that region it would be much more cost-effective, but if we there are only one or two witnesses, why don't we bring them in?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes. I'll report back to the committee, but I don't perceive it as being a big issue.

Mr. Batters.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

I'm just looking at the timeframe for this. That would mean five cities in five days. Then we would take into account Mr. Wilson's request to go to Whistler, which is beautiful country. But I don't believe you can do Vancouver, Whistler, and the others. I think that would be a gruelling trip.

I would suggest doing western Canada in four days, and then going to Toronto and Montreal. If we have a Maritime destination, we could do that another week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

It would be kind of gruelling.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

You want to do the witnesses justice. If you want to have time to go to places like Whistler, I don't believe you can do it in five days. That's my recommendation anyway. We could do western Canada separately. Another week we could go to Toronto, Madame Faille's riding, and perhaps the Maritimes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We are setting a bit of a gruelling schedule for ourselves. Do we need to do that? Why not spread it out a little bit?

Did you have a follow-up comment you wanted to make, Omar, before I go to Andrew?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I wanted to follow up on the previous comments.

Yes, I understand it's a demanding schedule, but the reason is that we have a lot of other things we want to look after, including Bill C-57, including foreign credentials. So we need to try to be as efficient as possible, and that's why maybe it's going to be tough on the committee to make choices as to where we're going to go, but I think it's reasonable to try to get as much as we can from the trip within one week.