For the program overall, as I said in my opening remarks, the government's recent announcement about allowing 30,000 low-skilled migrants to achieve PR is a good first step. We need those significant numbers annually. However, we have to be realistic too. Canada's whole story is about hard-working folks coming here and having the opportunity to advance their dreams. Did they all speak level 4 English when they came here? Absolutely not. We all have stories in our families about when our ancestors or our parents came here, or about coming here ourselves. I wonder how many of them could have passed the level 4 English exam. It's probably not many.
We have to be mindful of our own narrative as Canadians, and that needs to be reflected in all programs that have a pathway to citizenship. The temporary foreign worker program is increasingly becoming the predominant gateway to this country. We can't have a system that gives preferential status to—let's face it—an elite set within the labour market and we let thousands of people every year, in some cases for 20, 30 or 40 years, be on a hamster wheel without ever having the opportunity to lay down roots and really invest themselves in this country and help build our country for the future. It needs to start there.
In terms of the LMIA, I think there's an opportunity—and we've seen this in other industrialized economies—to involve some key stakeholders, such as trade unions, in trying to fill these spots. UFCW has some leading training programs. I have no doubt that many of our members would love to work in certain sectors that are becoming reliant on migrants, but employers are not compelled to work with us. There is no doubt that employers would prefer in many cases to work with the existing TFWP than to collaborate with some other stakeholders in trying to place domestic labour sources in those roles.