Mr. Speaker, I see the former minister of immigration is hurting. The reality is that sometimes it does hurt. The reality is that the current government has to take responsibility for its actions. That is why we are suggesting, first and foremost, to ensure that this program continues into the future, we need to get the Auditor General of Canada involved in the program in terms of looking into it and coming up with the recommendations that are critically important to preserve the integrity of the program.
We must remember that this is a program that started during the 1970s with Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He is the individual who created the program. It is interesting to hear the comments from the government side in regard to immigration, that it was just a skilled program and had no pathways to immigration. That is not true. There were complementary immigration programs like the live-in caregiver program, which had a direct link for every live-in caregiver to ultimately be able to land and become a permanent resident. The difference is that the Liberal Party recognizes the valuable contributions that immigrants make to our country, today and in the past. It is important to us that, as much as possible, we have pathways that lead toward immigration for a worker possibly landing here in Canada.
That is one of the reasons why the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration was taking credit and glowing about how wonderful the provincial nominee program is and how the current government has been expanding the numbers. Let me remind the minister that it was Jean Chrétien who created the provincial nominee program in the late 1990s, and it continued to evolve to today, where it is one of the most successful immigration programs we have. As a direct result of that program, members will find, if they take a look at the province of Manitoba, that the need for temporary workers is actually significantly stagnant compared to other regions of the country for one reason. It is because, through the provincial nominee program, they have been able to address the labour needs and at the same time allow people to have a pathway to immigration. The statistics will show that.