Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to these debates with a great deal of interest. The idea of a parliamentary committee is a thoughtful, non-partisan way to proceed on a program that is obviously broken and is costing jobs for Canadians.
Despite the parliamentary secretary's rhetoric, there are huge problems and a mushrooming of numbers in the temporary foreign worker program in ways that are not adhering to the claimed objectives of the program.
My question to the parliamentary secretary is: Has the government done anything to learn from the experience of northern European countries that had temporary worker programs, which the research showed led to an avalanche of bankruptcies as their own businesses were unable to compete with the lower wages being paid and the worse working conditions?
Eventually those European countries—Germany, for example—made major changes to their programs. That is just the kind of thing a parliamentary committee could find out about. We already know what does not work, and the path the government has trod has already been shown to be ineffective in Europe.
Will the parliamentary secretary consider the committee on the basis that it can help us learn from others' mistakes to correct the government's mistakes?