Going quickly to the point of your question, there's no question our points system needs a re-examination, particularly when your numbers so clearly expose something going on that actually has a bit of rank to it. The employer demand is for low-skilled or lower-skilled, likely less-waged, less-protected workers.
Yet on the other hand, we have two decades of data showing immigrants who are highly credentialled, who actually have a higher academic standing than most Canadians: 37.5% have a BA or higher degree, compared with Canadian-born citizens at 19.1%. We're seeing the same thing with their kids as well.
Meanwhile, the employers have insisted that we're moving into a knowledge-based economy. They've said that the new area for our dependents is biotech or IT. I have to ask the question: how's Nortel doing? We have these credentialled immigrants; they're living in low-income situations; the system does not work to put them in jobs that are commensurate with their skills.
Meanwhile, your numbers show, and it will not be a surprise to us to see, probably in the near future, yet more changes to the temporary foreign worker program, probably saying that some classes of those immigrants are going to be allowed to bring in their spouses and their children with work permits. I wonder how many of them will suddenly find themselves as cooks and babysitters, working in positions with less protection.