Madam Speaker, it was the Harper administration that really exposed us to and brought in this foreign worker program in 2014. We saw some things that were being done by the operators in this program, which are the companies. They have often been some of the larger companies, but there have also been family-owned ones that were very wealthy. I have seen this in the agriculture sector around my neck of the woods, for sure. The response by the Conservatives and Liberals on this issue was to subsidize the corporations and these rich families with more money, living condition supports and other types of taxpayer supports to help offset the cruelty that was taking place on their almost plantation-like systems of bringing foreign workers in there.
The excuse was that they could not find any Canadians for these types of things. At the same time, we had lots of Canadians in my riding who were willing to go out there, but they had no form of transportation. The wages are low, the training is bad, and the investment is poor. The response has always been to provide more subsidies to the corporations and to the rich families. That has to end. Canadians want to work, but there has to be proper transportation and safety; they have to be paid a fair market wage. Those are the reasons we see issues of fairness depressed with regard to wages and working conditions. It has to end.