Thank you.
Thank you to the witnesses for being with us.
I'd like to ask Ms. Amyot questions about international students and permanent residents. I think we would all agree that, particularly with our aging population, we need immigrants and these international students are almost the perfect candidates. They're young, they're educated, they have Canadian experience, and other countries are in competition for them.
My contention would be that in at least three areas the government has inhibited this. First, it has inhibited this by removing their 50% credit for time in Canada to become a citizen. Second, in terms of the job market, they now require a labour market impact assessment, LMIA, in some cases, to get a job, whereas they didn't before. Sometimes the firm might not think it was worth it to hire a foreign student now that they have this additional impediment. Third, the government has removed certain occupational classes as being eligible to become permanent residents. In certain cases students have come here and invested money. They've invested maybe two or three years of study in Canada with the hope of becoming a permanent resident on the basis of a specific occupation, and then all of a sudden they're told that occupation is no longer eligible. I would think we're shooting ourselves in the foot in these areas.
I would ask you to comment on anything you wish. In particular, on the question of the changes in occupation, would it not be fair and appropriate to have some sort of grandfathering system so if you change the occupations that are eligible that would be for the future? For those who have already spent some time in Canada and invested their time and money on this path for them suddenly to be deprived of that seems very unfair.