Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Waterloo—Wellington for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House.
Underground economic activity is indeed a problem in Canada which should be reduced. Representatives of the construction industry take this issue very seriously, so much so that they expressed concern about the growing problem of underground employment and its implications for the future of their industry directly to the Minister of Human Resources Development. In response to their concern the minister agreed to work with them and subsequently developed a joint industry-government working group to examine this important issue.
The report the member brought forth in his question in the House a number of months ago referred to the results of the working group's study. Its focus on labour market implications of underground employment in the construction industry is exactly what the member is asking about today.
Contrary to what the member is suggesting and suggested in his question not too long ago, there was no leak to the media. The fact is that over 1,000 copies of the report were made available to the working group members last December. The intention of that was to get some input from all those members as to what was the best solution to deal with the underground economy.
Because of the somewhat sensitive nature of the report—it describes in some detail how frauds are accomplished—the working group decided that its individual members could best determine how to distribute the report to their constituent organizations and concerned stakeholders. The report will be used by the individual working group members to create action plans to reduce underground employment in the construction industry.
Once that work is done I assure the member, the people at home who are watching and the House, that we will move very quickly on the underground economy.