Well, I most certainly don't want to be seen to be saying that the use of foreign workers is something that I wouldn't want to see. I recognize the demographics that we're facing in our industry. I would like see the public infrastructure funding going to procurement at least have some basis on which it's going to excite the local markets in order for those people you're talking about in your small communities to be able to thrive as well.
I was talking about going over to Esquimalt yesterday and seeing the crane that came from China. When I'm talking to an apprentice who is out work... For example, the iron workers on the island have about a 50% unemployment rate right now. It may look good on the Lower Mainland, it certainly isn't over there. When I go up and talk to the apprentice from Nanaimo who's standing there, he's saying, “What's the point in me taking an apprenticeship if this is going to happen?”
I've been at this job for about six years now. I've seen this eroding more and more. I've seen the large companies coming in. They're using the labour market opinions and the specialized business access to our markets to bring people from other countries here to do the work that we can do. I can understand doing that if we have a hot economy, as we had before it all fell apart two Novembers ago. Those were very heady times here in British Columbia. We needed everybody we could get.
But if that's also going to become the norm during the times when the economy goes down, then we're not training our people to the qualifications that we're going to need to maintain our competitive market, even here at home. That doesn't reflect well on either the federal government--whichever government's in power--or on the provincial government that allows that to happen and doesn't have the monitoring and enforcement to ensure those things are going to happen through the legislative packages as required.
