Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on being the first Portuguese member of Parliament. Many of us commiserate with the issues he raised of the undocumented workers.
I find it interesting that he indicated his party was always on the cusp of some idea or program that it might have implemented. It had 13 years to do it, 11 of which were majority governments, but never got it done. It is a lot of rhetoric.
Under the same tenure, the backlog was increased by 750,000, 100,000 undocumented workers were deported and a permanent residents fee of $975 per person was implemented. That was hardly progress. It seems that what was implemented was negative.
This government has taken steps with respect to the temporary foreign workers program to ease the process, to cut the red tape and to potentially allow them to become permanent residents. It has encouraged and proceeded with the provincial nominee program. Many provinces have taken up that program and have met much of their labour market needs. That includes trades, construction workers and skilled workers. In fact, the latitude is there for the provinces to make such categories available as they find they have need of, which would cover much of what the member states.
Would he not agree with me that there needs to be a legitimate way for people to come into the country, to come through the system we have, to meet the labour market needs? Does he not see the differences that is taking place in the initiatives even this far?