There were two reasons. First, we do see immigration as a tool to address labour shortages. Second, we've accommodated significant growth in the provincial nominee program, which has led to a better distribution of immigrants across the country and through which immigrants are getting very good initial economic results. A third reason was frankly to help us reduce the big backlogs that we inherited. Last year, for example, we decided to add another 10,000 admissions for the federal skilled worker program to draw down on that backlog. On further reflection, I don't think we should allow levels to be established by mistakes of the past. I don't think we should be artificially raising levels just for backlog reduction purposes.
Finally, Mr. Davies, I think the challenge here is that as we look at the economy, to state the obvious, we're living in a period of real uncertainty. We can see what's going on in Europe today, as we speak. We see a softening in the labour market in parts of Canada.
Here's the challenge: the restaurant association with whom you were speaking and the oil and gas producers have very acute labour shortages in their industries, particularly in the prairie provinces and northern British Columbia. But in central Canada and in parts of eastern Canada, we see the opposite problem. We see far more people who are unemployed. So we have to be very careful and very prudent.
With respect, I believe your suggestion to go to 1%—so to 340,000—and to give permanent residency to all temporary foreign workers, which would mean another 140,000 net for those who have access to permanent residency, would take us up to close to half a million--