On the issue the member of the panel raised with respect to temporary foreign workers, I gave the example in the presentation I made, in my opening statement, about the availability of workers just across our borders, living side by side with us.
Mr. Telegdi made the point that we have a free trade agreement with the United States. If we can get visas for these people, there's no cost to employers to bring these people in. They come in through a union hiring hall. They can go to work and they can fill these jobs. There are quite a few workers available on the American side of the border. That's because construction peaks are up and down. The American construction industry is down a bit, except if you go to California and Arizona. Maybe there are booms there, or in places like that, but in a lot of the midwest and central United States there are no big booms going on in the construction industry.
That's one area we can certainly look at with respect to temporary workers. The other thing is—and you say it's a cost, if you have these open visas versus closed visas and that sort of thing—I put into my brief that you should look at some kind of labour force work plan. I think that's something we need to look at, but I'm not saying the onus is on the federal government to do it. I'm saying they should do it in consultation with all stakeholders, everybody who's involved, in all industries, and set up sectors and go out and deal with that. But I'm speaking specifically from a construction perspective.
We have a lot of people in Canada who, if we had the right strategy and the right master work plan in place for this country, and if everybody participated in it.... There are many people who lose jobs in this country through restructuring, relocation, and everything. Right here in this province, there were 450 tradespeople, in the last year or year and a half or so, put out of work when they closed the paper mill—fairly highly skilled people. Where do you think they went? They're used to making good money. They came to the union halls to see whether they could get work. That's the first place they came.
These are areas that I think we have to look at in the long-term scheme of things.