Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Before I begin my questions, I would like to clarify something. I believe the deputy minister said earlier that on-site inspections will not begin until they determine how to do them. Now I hear that on-site inspections are being done and that 50% of them identify non-compliance. Something does not add up. I do not want an answer now because I would like to talk about something else, but I would like someone to check that.
I worked in the immigration sector for a very long time. I would like to talk about the elephant in the room, that is, that some Canadians do not want to do certain jobs, which is certainly their right. The program was established in 1966 specifically to deal with that problem. At the time, employers and farm owners were facing a major skills shortage. In the end, the solution was to create the temporary foreign workers program.
If we examine the program without considering this problem, that is very unfair to the people who were hired and to employers who have a lot of trouble finding people to do those jobs.
There have been many changes over the years. In the past 15 or 20 years, a major factor has emerged, that of family caregivers. We have increased their number greatly by recruiting people from all over the world. I am very concerned that, in 2009, there were about 20,000 applications to hire family caregivers, as compared to just 3,000 or 4,000 today, as my colleague Mr. Arya said.
Can you explain such a huge drop even though the demand for those workers has not decreased? We all know very well that the demand has not decreased in our ridings and in our communities. Families are still struggling to find family caregivers.
Why has this program been cut so much? How are we going to find people to do those jobs? I am certain—and I see this—that no Canadians want those jobs.