Thank you for your visit today to help us understand these important issues.
I want to ask a question around the temporary foreign worker program. I have a constituent in Vancouver Quadra who has had a huge amount of frustration trying to get approval for a temporary foreign worker in a start-up where she's president. At a time of trying to get a new technology going, raise funds, find some of the expertise that she needed, she found someone but spent literally over a year hitting a brick wall in trying to bring someone in. This is a very small start-up, so everybody's essentially doing it off the corner of their desk. She just felt that the department was completely unresponsive.
I'm just wondering whether there is any kind of an ombudsperson. Is there any kind of place where someone in that situation, who is poised to create a technology-based business that could be a huge job creator and hits a brick wall...? Is there a way that she can get through the 1-800 number lines and talk to a real person, and appeal the decision? Is that possible? Because there's going to be a lot of people in that situation in the SME category.