Yes, thanks very much.
It started way back in 1951 with Germany and now we have 32 countries around the world that have agreements with us to allow young people 18 to 35 years of age to come to Canada and work, and allow Canadians to work abroad in those countries in the same numbers. The goal is exchange. The goal is introducing young people from abroad to Canada and young Canadians to almost three dozen countries around the world. It has been very highly appreciated. In 2015 the quotas are close to 70,000: 68,890. We have some very strong programs with countries like France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, New Zealand—a very large program for the size of New Zealand—and in some of those cases we have reciprocity. Our challenge now is to entice more Canadians to go abroad. I invite all of you around the table to remind your constituents that they have the opportunity to get a work permit to have not only a travel experience but also a work experience in any one of these 32 countries. There's a lot of unsubscribed space there.
The program also reinforces one of the new trends in Canadian immigration over the last 10 years that I think is exciting and is helping us ensure immigrants adapt to Canada and succeed in Canada faster. We are recruiting more and more immigrants from people who are already here, who have studied here. There are 340,000 international students in Canada now. Those who complete diplomas or degrees get a work permit. We recruit more and more of our immigrants from that population, as we do from the temporary foreign worker population, especially this year when in the wake of our reform, many of those people want to transition from temporary to permanent status. This international experience Canada pool of close to 70,000 young people who want to come here, who get an experience of Canada, get interested in Canada and often go to far-flung parts of Canada can become our future immigrants.