Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
We all recognize that immigration is not just about the need of the skilled labour market to meet Canada's increasing need for skilled workers. I understand it is feared that down the road almost 100% of the net labour market requirement will come from immigration. But there are also humanitarian and emotional factors in a compassionate country, and therefore it is such an important part of our lives that I tend to give some credence to the ideas put forward by the law society, as stated before. There's the Law Society Act of 1990 and then the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991; the Professional Engineers Act, 1990; and there has also been the Public Accountancy Act of 1990.
So some people have mentioned here that this might be the way to go, and also it has been suggested there may be a conflict of interest as far as CSIC being supervised by Citizenship and Immigration Canada is concerned. I'd like to hear your comment on that as well.
Also, as everybody has admitted today and every other day, it's a known fact that there are problems within the immigration consultant family. It has been suggested that individuals or organizations are encouraging or dealing with untrained, unqualified people. I'd like to see what the impact of that might be. Those who are regulated by CSIC may still choose to misrepresent a certain policy to the public. CSIC may not be able to take any action.
So a host of questions are out there.
Ms. Balakrishna also suggested, and rightly so, that there may be unscrupulous lawyers. We're all human, and there are good and bad people in every profession. My question is, if there are unscrupulous lawyers, is there a course of action? I'd like to receive your comment on that issue.
If there was one way you could improve the system, as was suggested way back on October 31, 2003, to then Liberal minister Denis Coderre... I'm sure you're aware of that; if not, we could look into it. How can they fix the system? The system is not functional. There are problems. You all admit that. What do you think is the easiest way to bring about and monitor, federally and provincially, the change you suggested earlier? If CSIC is not satisfactory to the people who are here today, what's the alternative?
Anybody?