Evidence of meeting #45 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was changes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
7:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Mr. Chair, point of order. I don't think the parliamentary secretary--and actually his time is up--should be preaching to the rest of the members of Parliament what they should or should not be doing.
7:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Acting Chair Liberal Maurizio Bevilacqua
Okay.
Thank you very much, Mr. Komarnicki.
Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.
We'll go to Mr. Hudda.
7:05 p.m.
Director, Islamic Humanitarian Service
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, perhaps I may respond to two aspects of the honourable member's issues.
At the very beginning of his seven minutes, he mentioned that the federal government and the minister herself are committed to speaking to the provinces and territories. Now it's his own admission to draft out future issues on immigration and skilled workers. By his own admission he has acknowledged that only the provinces and territories are to be consulted.
What I think has been a consensus here.... I'm not sure what the other witnesses have said, but at least the six of us sitting at this table are somewhat unanimous that there needs to be some sort of method of addressing the matter from the grassroots level, the people who are in the field, the people who are there, not the people who are sitting on Parliament Hill away from the common people. I'm not saying you are away from the people, but as a reality a lot of your work may not involve dealing with people's lives, one on one, in front of us.
You mentioned that the safeguards are there, but at the same time we've had sunset clauses on a lot of laws that never came to pass, and that's what I wanted to address. The issue of skilled workers, all those names you took, honourable members, we understand, and I understand, all those agencies, whether it was the Canada India Foundation, or whatever, were all agencies, organizations, and employers who were siding with the government on the skilled worker issue.
We don't have an issue. We understand the immigration legislation needs to be fixed. The immigration backlog needs to be fixed. But there are aspects of this that are way too broad for the mandate of only fixing the immigration problem and encouraging skilled workers to come to Canada. The issues are much deeper than that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you.
Do I get the feeling that somebody else wants to say something before we close officially in a moment or two?
7:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services
Yes, I do.
I wanted to just touch briefly on the fact that somebody mentioned Australia and the fact that Australia had actually copied our system years ago. A recent study done comparing Australia and Canada in terms of the integration of IDPs in both countries shows that we are lacking and we're lagging behind in this whole access to professions and trades and the integrating of IDPs into the workforce.
So if we are lagging behind and we are not able to successfully integrate them based on our current systems—and I did point out in my opening statement that Ontario is the only province that seems to have a law that addresses the issue with the integration of foreign trained professionals and these highly skilled people—then why are we bringing in more, and why are we focusing on them when we should fix the issue of integrating them and solving that problem?
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
Wajid Khan Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Mr. Chair, may I make a quick ten-second comment?
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
Wajid Khan Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Two witnesses on the right made a comment here, and I'd like to be on the record. They said that the brightest and the best are not loyal to this country. I object to that; I disagree with that.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Your objection is noted.
Thank you very much for your comments, for your testimony today.
Order, please.
I want to inform the witnesses that they are the last witnesses we'll be hearing, and of course tonight and tomorrow we will be considering our report, so I'm sure your comments will be taken into account and hopefully they'll be reflected in the report. So thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.