I appreciate the question. Indeed, to put it succinctly, our current system is broken. We need to fix it.
If our system were working, if our skilled worker immigrant process—the 600 cases we have—were working and it did not take six years to come here, the construction companies or companies that very much need these workers could simply be asked to apply. I recently came across a situation where a construction company legitimately applied to have temporary workers come here from China. They interviewed people, 45 of them, and all of them were turned down. So our system is not working, and that is the root cause of what is happening with undocumented workers.
What I'm suggesting is that we must have a two-pronged approach. There's no reason why we should choose A or B; we can actually choose to do this on a parallel basis. We already have people who are now working in our construction industries illegally as undocumented workers, and maybe some of them are being exploited, but why don't we recognize them and allow them to become permanent residents so they can start paying taxes and access health care, so that their kids and wife can come and join them?
For the other people currently in the queue, we should find a way to expedite their application process and to go forward with a new process, as suggested by the current bill before the House to amend the immigration act, which would allow the ministry at least some form of flexibility to bring in much-needed workers.
If we can fill those needs, then the need for undocumented workers might start to wane and we might not have this problem. So to me, it's not an either/or answer.