Thank you.
On the undocumented worker side, we have some real issues.
The federal government a few years ago started up the CREWS program in Toronto. It gave input to labour and management in the construction industry to work with that program. I think it had some reasonable success. There were opponents to it, but the people who were opponents to the CREWS program were primarily people who work in the underground economy. They don't like rules and regulations that people have to comply with.
We have some real concerns about the workers themselves. If they are illegally in the country or illegally at work, they are very, very much exposed to exploitation. There's no doubt that it exists. We've watched that take place in Toronto. We even had an ad in the paper a few months back where one of the unions that was trying to help the undocumented workers was promising them that if they came forward to get help around their training and health and safety issues and to help them get their documents, the union wouldn't turn them in. I thought that was pretty fascinating, but it should be a message that sinks in for our representatives in the federal government that the exploitation is alive and well.
On the undocumented worker issue, if contractors in our industry, in construction, are allowed to carry on with that type of behaviour, it creates an unlevel playing field for legitimate contractors and legitimate workers to work in the province of Ontario. There's evidence, lots of evidence, around of how these people avoid paying their GST, CPP, EI, income tax, all of it.
We have people coming to union meetings and saying, “Why am I at a union meeting? Why do I belong to the union? I make $10 an hour more than some undocumented worker”--that they're aware of--“yet that person takes home $300 or $400 a week more than I do.”
It's a very serious problem. At this point in time, the unions and the legitimate employers work together to try to compete, but it can't last forever before we have to start doing shady things, if the government is going to let the undocumented worker problem stand as it is.
I think those would be my comments on the undocumented worker.