I'd like to thank the five witnesses for coming here. I really see how you all are very passionate, because when we're watching one person's answer, the others are nodding. You really know your fields. I appreciate the work you do. I think that immigrants who come to your communities are very lucky to have agencies like yours.
I come from rural Alberta. One of the things our government is encouraging is that immigrants become fully part of the Canadian economy and integrate into the communities as soon as possible.
You have the facilities in your communities to give that to people. In the rural communities, whether it be in Ontario, Alberta, or wherever, we don't have facilities like that. On many occasions, we are leaving it up to the employer that hires that person, especially when we bring a person in on the express entry program, where you specialize. We don't have agencies such as yours to go to. We're leaving it to the employer in a lot of cases to give that help to the new person coming into our community.
I'll start with Debbie, and then maybe go to John.
You people probably do some tracking within your organizations. What can we do to assist the immigrants coming into Canada in the outlying communities? Personally, I think that sometimes there are much better economic opportunities for them in coming to smaller communities. What can we do to help support that?
Debbie first, please.