Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here. I just want to read a little bit of this article that came out in the spring. It's a CTV news article. The title of it is “In Canada, labour shortage is the 'new normal'”:
Canada's small and mid-sized companies must find ways to adapt to a “new norm” of worker shortages that will likely persist for a decade, says Pierre Cleroux, chief economist for the Business Development Bank of Canada....
The BDC's survey of 1,208 people from small and medium-sized businesses, with at least $500,000 in annual sales, found 39 per cent of them were having difficulties hiring the types of new workers they required.
I just want to get into the global skills strategy. We initiated that about a year and a half ago, I believe, now. Can you tell us why we brought this initiative in? I believe in your testimony you said that we've allotted 21,000 work permits for foreign talent. Is that correct?