Mr. Speaker, I worked with the hon. member on the citizenship and immigration committee, and I see another colleague of mine across the way from Surrey. We really had a wonderful experience as parliamentarians because we could work in a non-partisan fashion. We could take very difficult issues and arrive at a consensus.
I agree with the member that the refugee appeal division has to be enacted into law. One of the things we continually worked on was to make that happen. We said that when the government appoints members of the refugee board, it should be based on competence. That is essentially what has happened. We have put that in place and I must say I am a little disturbed to find out that three members of the Montreal refugee board, who have received excellent appraisals and who were hired by an independent tribunal, have lost their positions.
We have always said that things must be based on competence. One of the problems with the refugee board has been that people did not have the experience. We needed experienced people on that board and I hope that the minister will revisit that decision.
In terms of temporary workers, there is a solution. We must begin from the premise that if we were to take every worker in this country who is undocumented and ship them out of the country tomorrow, our economy would take a big cut because those jobs need to be filled in this economy. We must issue temporary work permits and see if over time we can regularize these workers, so they can become landed immigrants and Canadian citizens, and partake in the Canadian dream.