Despite the favourable environment in Canada, some issues should be pointed out. We will highlight three of them, starting with the main one, which is often talked about—labour mobility. I think it's very important to mention that our company—and the industry as a whole—is investing a great deal of time and money to develop the skills of young Canadians, students, and of our own workforce. We are really working hard on recruiting in Canada. Despite that, we are experiencing a significant labour shortage, especially at intermediate, senior and expert levels.
Given that reality, we have to seek new employees abroad, even though that costs our company a lot of money. Hiring people abroad is the only way to ensure the quality of our games and to meet consumers' very high expectations. However, international recruitment does have one benefit. The experts we bring in provide training for Canadians, here. So our workforce can be developed here and acquire expertise that is not available in Quebec or Canada.
We face some obstacles in the international recruitment process, including long delays in obtaining labour market opinions—especially since the expedited process was suspended—proposed constraints to the intra-company transfer program, a four-year limit for work permits, delays and unequal treatment in embassies, and so on. All that greatly complicates the process used to find those resources, which are really essential for us.
The second point has to do with the research and development tax credit, which is clearly more beneficial for Canadian companies than for foreign ones. It would really help if the difference in treatment between Canadian and foreign companies could be reduced.