Mr. Chair, neither CIC nor stakeholders are really able to determine the exact number of persons who are in Canada illegally, including undocumented workers.
There is no hard data, as I said in my opening remarks, to accurately support an estimate of undocumented workers or illegal persons. Estimates range from 80,000 to 500,000, depending on the source, and while media and the stakeholders often cite very high numbers, these are not based, as I said, on supportable evidence.
What the department has done relates back to 2005, when we compiled our own estimate of undocumented workers, which we calculated to be between 80,000 and 120,000. This was an estimate arrived at after consulting with industry associations, labour groups, and regional CIC offices across the country.
Really, for us to have an accurate estimate of this population, Canada would need to have exit controls so we could track the entry and exit of people and therefore understand how many people have overstayed.