Thank you, Jean-Marie.
Good morning everyone, and thank you for your invitation.
I fully support all the comments Jean-Marie has made thus far. He went over the recommendations you have in front of you. I would simply like to mention one other aspect related to the mandate of CIC, which does not recognize temporary permits and students. It favours only permanent residents, which unfortunately poses a challenge for the communities, because funding is not available to help temporary residents and students, who are nevertheless individuals with real potential as permanent residents.
I am an example of that. I came here under the Working Holiday Program, simply to discover the region, and subsequently returned with a work permit. I am currently in the process of securing permanent residency, and soon will obtain citizenship. We believe there is a need to work with the University of Moncton, but Nova Scotia has the same problem. There are a lot of international students—Francophone students. We want to keep them here, but unfortunately, we have nothing to offer them in the way of services, and as a result, we lose them. There is a need to broaden CIC's mandate.
In New Brunswick, we are lucky that an agreement has been signed with the Population Growth Secretariat providing for a $10 million budget. The Secretariat recognizes temporary immigrants and students. That is an advantage that we have compared to other provinces. So, this is something that should be looked at. That is the point I wanted to add.