Madam Speaker, I typically would have tried to avoid this particular type of debate except for two things.
First, on the weekend, I spent some time with a group of live-in caregivers who wanted to recount all of the experiences that they have been having in the country and experiences with which I have been professionally associated, in part, as a former minister of immigration. There have been two others between me and the current minister.
Second, I was a little dismayed by the presentation offered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, which I can only identify as an excuse. Instead of addressing an issue prompted by this report, the issue was really that a former government, two Parliaments ago, after having been in government for x number of years, still had some difficulties associated with the program.
No House, people or group should accept those kinds of excuses for inaction. After four years, the government had an opportunity to address an issue that it had identified as a priority issue, both in terms of procedures on how to get people into this country and the circumstances in which they entered, and the substance of whether a demographic policy would fit in the long-term interests of a Canadian economic policy.
The Conservative government has done neither. Worse, as can be pointed out through this report, it has left temporary workers, especially live-in caregivers, in a position of fragile uncertainty: first, because it has not made a sincere effort to come to grips with the conditions into which the Minister of Immigration allows people to come and serve the larger interests of Canadian society; and second, because it prevents such individuals from enhancing their own condition in Canada and thereby making a greater contribution to the collective good of the country.
One might ask, how? There is no reason why live-in caregivers cannot pursue academic betterment. There is no reason why they cannot pursue, like all other Canadians, an opportunity to enhance their own qualifications for entry into a different category once their, if I can use this word improperly, trial period in Canada is satisfied. Finally, there is no reason why a live-in caregiver must be subjected to conditions of labour and conditions of social improvement that we would not accept as Canadians.
There is no reason, then, for the government to think in terms of unscrupulous consultants, et cetera. It is just another red herring because the consultants and lawyers who represent immigrants, potential immigrants, and those who are here on a temporary basis, whether it be in the live-in caregiver program or as migrant workers, temporary workers of any variety—