Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Certainly Andrew expressed my feelings exactly. I'm thrilled to hear what you had to say this morning, and the first thing I would ask, before I forget, is this. I suspect you did not hand in a report, or at least a speech, because it's only in one language. I would really appreciate it if you would let the clerk have a copy of what you just read out, so we could have it translated and distributed, because I agree with just about all the things you said, but some of them were very much in detail. And your recommendations I think are very important to take note of.
I can tell you that one of your recommendations, regarding the landing of temporary workers, is already in the books as far as this committee is concerned, and we discussed it earlier this week. From what I understand, we are certainly pretty well in agreement, as members of this committee, that this is something we should recommend to the government.
We heard from a witness in Quebec City a couple of days ago. I forget which day this is now. If this is Wednesday, should it be Halifax or should it be St. John's? I don't know any more. But we heard from a witness in Quebec who compared the situation of temporary workers to, as she called it, “servitude”. I think it's more of a French word than it is English. It was a shocking word to use, but it woke some of us up to what can happen. I'm not saying that this is what happens across the board, by any means, and a lot of employers are very concerned and take care of their workers, etc.
This is what has to be looked at: the systemic approach, not the individual approach. The system itself allows for this sort of thing that you've talked about to happen, and this is what we have to look at. We have to look at how to change the system, not just to say to somebody, “Well, you're doing badly”, and to somebody else, “You're doing well”.
What worries me about the system also is that.... I'm worried about the two minutes.