We have a huge advantage over many other industrial countries in that we've had an active set of values and a set of policies towards immigration for a long time. A country like Japan, which has reached and passed zero population growth, doesn't believe in immigration. It gives people one-year work permits and then tries to get them to go home, because they have a particular social view.
For us, smarter immigration policy would consist of things like offshore recognition of credentials. We pushed for that years ago--three or five years ago--and we were very pleased to see recent announcements that the government is going to establish a greater capacity for offshore credential recognition. That's a key piece. We think that the balance between economic and other classes of immigrants has to be rethought. We need to put more weight on people coming here who are going to be direct contributors to our workforce.
We clearly need to invest more in things like more rapid integration of immigrants into society. Recognizing credentials earlier so people don't have to come and requalify would be an important piece of that. I think there's a particular crying need, a short-term need right now, given the acute gaps that exist in Alberta--and I hear about it in Manitoba, as well--to be a lot more creative about short-term work permits and almost guest-worker programs, but in a very positive way, and to actually find ways to build that into our economic strategy.
It's interesting that we hear about the provinces taking a lot of the lead in that right now. They are actually doing programs, trying to match the needs of employers with the available workforce and looking outside the country. There is a lot of ground to be made up at many different levels.