Mr. Speaker, the Liberals had 13 years to study and the Conservatives have had more than a year to look at the various options. There have been many options. Pilot projects have been suggested by the construction trade, immigrant working groups and different cities. I know the city of Toronto certainly had different suggestions. There have been options, reviews and studies on this issue.
If we have hearings, are we going to ask the undocumented workers to come to Ottawa to speak to the standing committee? That would not work. It is not as if we do not know what the problems are.
Construction workers appeared before us who said that we have serious shortages. Different immigrant working groups, whether from Brazilian, Portuguese or Filipino communities, said that more deportations are a complete waste of taxpayers' money. Why? Because we deport these workers after spending a lot of money in court and then about a year later, because the employer still needs these workers, after they return to their home country they bring the workers back to Canada.
It is wasting the employer's time, it is causing hardship, tearing families apart, removing kids who are already in school, some of them even born in Canada, and interrupting their daily lives. What for? They are not criminals. If they are good enough to work here, they are good enough to stay in Canada.
In the mid-1980s there were regularization programs that worked and Canada benefited from these workers becoming landed immigrants as they are now contributing as citizens.