Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to continue in the same vein and speak to Mr. Boudreau as well.
You tell us that the labour shortage in certain technical fields is filled by temporary workers, and you justify that by saying that the immigration process is too long. So we quickly resort to temporary workers. The fact remains that we act as though they were goods to be used one year and set aside the following year. However, the testimony we've heard in the past two weeks in various regions of the country has made us aware of all the problems this causes for temporary workers.
Other workers have suggested that we grant permanent residence to those who come to work here for a number of consecutive years. However, the backlog of unprocessed immigration applications has been highlighted and we've wondered whether granting permanent residence to these workers wouldn't mean favouring them to the detriment of those who filed applications a long time ago. That's a whole issue.
We see that the use of temporary workers is merely a short-term solution that we repeat year after year. Mr. Telegdi cited the example of Hungarian immigrants who arrived in large numbers because there was an urgent labour need. You said that the people who were granted permanent residence also had to meet other non-work-related criteria. We want them to be good citizens for the country.
If you had the choice, would you press the government to accelerate the immigration process and establish specific criteria to meet labour needs in each of the regions, which would eliminate the necessity of resorting to temporary workers?