In order to illustrate our point about the large number of occupations and job categories that would be affected by the TPP, we attached to our legal opinion one of the annexes from the agreement. Basically, there is an annex related to labour mobility for every TPP signatory partner.
The example we attached was the annex that outlines the kinds of workers that employers would be allowed to use the agreement to bring workers into the country under. This is the one between Canada and Chile. It basically mentions all health, education, and social services occupations, and all the NOC B technicians—machinists, mining and quarrying workers, oil drilling services workers, manufacturing workers, textile workers—just about every construction trade you can think of. The point is that this is a lot bigger than you have been led to believe. These are not narrowly defined categories. In fact, it's quite the opposite. We think that if this is ratified, it will open the floodgates, allowing employers to bring workers into the country under a vast number of occupational categories—more than you have been led to believe.
On your point about immigration, this goes back to my point about control. I didn't like the temporary foreign worker program as it was constituted under the Harper government, and I didn't like it as it was constituted under the last Liberal government, but at least elected legislators, people who are accountable to Canadians, ran the program. It was yours and if there were a problem, you could fix it. If the public were concerned about it, you could respond to those concerns.
What I am saying is that if you pass this agreement, you will hand over that ability to control the movement of temporary workers in and out of the country. You will hand that over to an agreement that is entrenched and will be difficult to fix, and you will hand it over to some faceless panel.
I'd rather have people like you, who have to respond to people like me and to your constituents, with the real authority, rather than vest authority in an international agreement.