Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member answered his own question. No one pays it up front. No one from that area has that kind of money. They sign a chit or whatever that they owe that money when they get here.
My brother is a lawyer in Toronto and has one of these people as a client. This person was chained to a bed in the basement of a home and forced to work 16 to 18 hour days in servitude, in bondage. This is bonded labour. This is a return to the bad old days of slavery. People are desperate enough to undertake the obligation of owing $40,000. If they do not pay it back, they are under great threat of coercion or of having damage done to their families back home. Many of them probably still have loved ones back in the Fujian province.
This is the kind of coercion and manipulation that goes on in the minds of desperate people. Can anyone imagine how desperate people would have to be? The 18 cents an hour is not my figure. It was the International Labour Organization that just recently did the study of the free economic trade zones in the Fujian province where a lot of our products are made, such as children's toys, furniture and electronics. Maybe the clothes that I am wearing right now were stitched together in that particular area of China. There are 200 free economic trade zones in China now, many of them in the Fujian province, where western goods are made. I did not invent that figure. The International Labour Organization's estimate was that 85 cents an hour would be a reasonable living wage for a person in that area of China. They make 18 cents an hour. Beijing is a heck of a long way from the Fujian province. I do not know how they would even get there to file an application for a visa. I do not think it can be done. Legally, they cannot get here from there.