Of course, Mr. Speaker, as long is there has been a temporary foreign worker program and as long as we have had the low-skill stream in that program, which was started by the Liberal Party, there have been accusations of abuse from time to time.
We started this review almost a year ago. We have continuously brought forward changes to try to tighten up the program, to make sure it reflects the values Canadians support, which are that we can have a temporary foreign worker program but we first must ensure that all Canadians have access to available jobs before an employer has the ability to bring in a temporary foreign worker. As I just mentioned, one of those steps was, of course, allowing on-site inspectors to investigate this. We have extended the period of time that employers have to advertise. We want to make sure employers do a robust search for Canadian employees.
On top of that, this is indicative of a larger problem within the labour market, that we need to have employers have more engagement in training.
Canada has the lowest amount of participation by employers in training employees. We need employers to engage and invest in this. This is why we brought forward, as part of the 2013 budget, the Canada job grant. This will leverage private sector investment, use that in conjunction with the public sector investment in the literally billions of dollars we currently transfer to the provinces—the $500 million program we transferred in the former labour market agreements, now the Canada job fund—to encourage employers to participate actively on the training side and make sure that, when employees are trained, they will have a job waiting for them at the other end.
We have been working on this for years now, and we will continue to ensure that, when jobs are available, Canadians have first crack at those jobs; but we are also taking steps to make sure that employers are now engaged, to make sure there are training methods in place, so workers will be trained to take these jobs when they come up.