Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
To the witnesses, as you know, we have some exciting times going on in Parliament with this whole issue of Bill C-50. If you got part of a debate that you weren't particularly happy about, I apologize, but we will hear all the witnesses who came before that.
I have had a great number of problems with the whole issue of undocumented workers.
The reason is that when we changed the Immigration Act in 2002...I would love to say we did it because the minister came out with a vision of how things should go, but we essentially did it because the bureaucracy came up with a plan to cut the 800,000 people on the waiting list. What they essentially ended up doing is barring people this economy needed, such as was mentioned: construction workers, other folks. They could not come in as immigrants because they would not qualify under the new point system, which was set by regulations. If you didn't have the language, if you didn't have the education, you would not get in. The fact that we needed construction workers...well, that was too bad, and I think we saw a growth in the undocumented worker category. So there was a mismatch created by the Immigration Act to what the economy needed and what we got. That's a real concern.
The other concern I have, and maybe you can address it as well, is more and more our reliance on temporary foreign workers. We've had farm workers who have been coming to Canada for 30 years, and some even for 40 years. They come here without their families, and then they have to go back. They keep coming back. I have a worry that I see the number of temporary foreign workers rising. I'd rather have people who come to Canada and decide that this is the place they want to live, raise their families, and become Canadians. I don't think it's healthy to have a high population of single folks.
It reminds me of what happened when Canada built the railways. We brought in the Chinese, and then when the railway was finished, we wanted to send them back. We changed all that, where we had an open immigration program. Now I see an analogous situation. We want to bring in people to help build the tar sands or help build the Olympic facilities, and when we're finished with them we're going to send them back.
I wonder if Mr. Collacott and Mr. DeVoretz could respond to those points.