Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 16th, 2008

[Gerry Mills]

[Inaudible--Editor]...mean that that's exactly right. I think we need to look at what the country needs and we need to protect the refugee branch. We need to do that. That's key, and it always has been, to who we are as a nation. But when we're talking about the economic stream, what we've done with the economic stream is put highly skilled.... The economic stream equals highly skilled. That's not what the economy of Canada is. The economy of Canada is--

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

It's broader than that.

[Gerry Mills]

Yes, and it's multi-faceted and it's this big. So that's probably the stream that needs to be looked at.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Yes, and we need to make provision for that within the system so that people can legitimately come through, as opposed to some other means.

[Gerry Mills]

People are coming right now as temporary farm workers and they want to stay here. Why are we doing that? Why are we pulling them through on a temporary farm worker stream when they want to become permanent residents? It just baffles the mind. It's a quicker route for the employer. Business, of course, likes it. To be able to come here as a temporary farm worker you need to do the security checks, you need to do the health checks. All those things are almost exactly the same for a permanent resident, except when you get to the point system.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Obviously that's where the provincial nominee system does work relatively well, because provinces can nominate the party they want and the federal government deals with security, obviously, and health. But the actual determination, the selection of the person, is left to the province, and that's a legitimate stream, if the province chooses to go that way. As we heard earlier, some agreements have been signed where there are no limitations on those, so it's an area that actually provides a province with a stream. But from what you're saying, I gather you'd like to see a federal stream in addition to the provincial nominee program.

[Gerry Mills]

Absolutely. Yes, I think we should have a federal stream. I don't think it should be a provincial responsibility.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you for your presence here today. It's very much appreciated and we've had a very interesting and stimulating morning.

I want to thank all the members and all the panel folks who came before us as well for the contributions they've made.

The meeting is adjourned.