Here are the four main thrusts that could help us in the short term.
First, bringing in foreign workers is a very attractive solution that would help us gain access to skills and experience no longer available in the current job market.
To reduce the wait times for this process, the government could do away with labour market impact assessments (LMIAs) for trades experiencing labour shortages. There would have to be some conditions, and they wouldn't eliminate LMIAs for all trades, but they could at least do it for the trades facing labour shortages.
Second, there's the issue of the costs associated with this whole process. Tax credit or other programs could help offset part of the costs associated with government documents or other costs that businesses must cover to manage these records. That would be a big help for small and medium-sized businesses.
Third, we have limited resources available to get moving on this. We've realized that there are not many Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada officers in Quebec. That translates into long wait times. Even so, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada staff do good work, and they transfer files to other provinces. However, the fact that Quebec has two levels of government causes some problems because the other provinces don't apply the same rules as Quebec. The immigration officers are not aware of the rules, which makes processing times much longer.
Fourth, a digital solution should be found to allow web-based file tracking at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Currently, if you want to follow up, you need to call Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, but you can't speak directly with someone. You have to leave a message and wait for an employee to call you back within a certain amount of time, usually about 24 hours. However, you never know when that individual will call you back and, therefore, someone has to be available at all times to take the call. If you miss the call, you have to call back and go through the process all over again.
These four solutions could be put forward in the short term.