I think the open visa obviously is a much better fit than what we're seeing right now, just for the reasons you gave, with the control the employer has, when it's a single employer, when that link is broken. Those workers are under extreme pressure when they come here to work. We know you'll hear that they're treated the same as everyone else. When you come here from perhaps an oppressed country or environment and then you get sent home.... These workers work under conditions that aren't fair. They may not be getting the top competitive wage. Your proposal that within the qualification or the skill range they be able to go and apply or take employment with another employer in the same locale is better than what we have. But I honestly think we should go back to where we used to be, when they were part of an immigration strategy rather than being in the temporary pockets. That's much more open, much more transparent, and fairer to everyone in the long term.
I can't help but say something, by the way, when the employers say there is a cost. I'm not comparing this to another era in history, but I can almost imagine when they were talking about abolishing the slave trade, when government stepped in and abolished slavery. People at that time would have said, “We went to great cost to get those people here”. We took a stand on human rights and said that's not the way to treat people, and we made changes. Yes, there are costs. There are going to be costs to recruiting. But they're reneging on other costs.
I'm glad there are some MPs here from Quebec, because we just had a very good discussion with our minister. We have a new minister in our new Department of Labour and Workforce Development. Because we have concerns about what's happening with youth not getting opportunities for training, we're trying to model what Quebec has been doing. We've talked about that at a round table with employers and government representatives, and we've talked about it with our new department, because of the devolution of funding coming from the federal government to the provinces. We want to look at trying to set up a training program so that there's a responsibility for employers to provide training, to give opportunities. If this program is escalated, that can undermine all that. It's not helping our economy. It's not helping our future, and it certainly is not going to be a welcome mat for new Canadians. We do need a solid immigration strategy along with what we're doing within this country.
I'm very concerned about the temporary aspect of it in general. An open visa is much better than the closed visa.