Mr. Speaker, my question to my friend across the way is quite specific. What took the government so long?
In 2009 the Auditor General pointed out significant and serious problems. As my colleague said in her comments, this program should be the place of last resort. For over five years the government has known that is not how the program has been used. For over five years the government has known that the program has been abused. Suddenly the government has found religion on this issue and I cannot help but think it is connected to the headlines that have suddenly hit the newspapers about the most egregious abuses.
How is my colleague able to rationalize her government's promotion of this program? The government spent Canadian taxpayers' money promoting the program. How can her government justify allowing it to be abused for so long when the C.D. Howe Institute of all places has said that the program has had a suppressive effect on wages and a negative effect on those seeking employment?
For a government that is supposed to be concerned about jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity, does the temporary foreign worker program fit into that mantra that it has repeated ad nauseam without any actual effect behind it?
Does the government take any responsibility for the program that it has allowed to be abused and has taken five years to correct once it was—