Madam Speaker, I know I speak for hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers, students, families, employers, communities and hard-working industrious community-minded people who long to be a part of our magnificent country of Canada. My friend and colleague, the hard-working member for Surrey Centre, with Motion No. 44, is the hope that all of these great people need, that our economy needs and that our country needs.
We have an economy that is leading the G7. With a strong plan to continue that growth, budget 2022 is all about economic growth, jobs, community and country building. That is why Motion No. 44 is vital at this time.
Every week at my office in Mississauga East—Cooksville, I have employers coming to let me know how much they are growing, how they are scaling up and how they need more workers. These employers are from all sectors: manufacturing, transportation, logistics, hospitality, health care, construction and trades. I could go on.
Statistics Canada shows us that our unemployment rate is the lowest we have seen ever. Since we started measuring unemployment in 1976, our unemployment is the lowest today, at 5.2%.
Canada has always been a beacon of hope for people fleeing from wars, persecution, fascism, dictatorships and totalitarian states. Waves of immigrants have come to Canada for its democracy, peace and freedom.
I have a Ukrainian intern, Olha Louise Boleyn, who just arrived here in Canada a couple of weeks ago. She is working in my office. She is a courageous young woman of 22 years old. On February 24, when Putin started the illegal, illegitimate war against Ukraine, a sovereign state, this woman's world changed. All of a sudden her family had to flee. Her home and her building were hit by a missile and they lost power. She knew she had to move her family. Her mother and three siblings have gone to Poland to find refuge, her father is still in Ukraine and she has come here to Canada, having helped her family find safe haven. This young woman speaks English, French and Ukrainian.
I thank our Minister of Immigration, our Prime Minister, our Deputy Prime Minister and all parliamentarians here, because I know we all stand together strong for Ukraine. We are here to help Ukrainians find safety, find help and build a better life.
There is a legacy of Ukrainians coming to Canada, and they have farms right across our Prairies. My wife Christina Yaremczuk's family is from Ukraine. Her parents had to flee World War II. They went to a displaced persons camp and then were brought here to Canada. Her grandfather worked at a factory and her mother worked in health care, helping to build our country. Her father went to school here and became a citizen and dentist.
Let us consider stories like the story of my wife's parents. I could tell colleagues a bit about my story and my parents. This is about Portuguese people, Italians, Filipinos, Polish people, Ukrainians, Asians, South Asians and the entire world, because outside of our indigenous people, Canada has been built on immigration. We have brought people here from all over the world and given hard-working industrious people an opportunity to succeed.
This is all true for our temporary foreign workers and our foreign students. Many of them have come to my office, as I am sure they have visited many of my colleagues' offices. They love their adopted community and country, and want to stay here.
Their employers want them to stay, but they have barriers in front of them. They are looking for, and need, a pathway to permanent residency. That is what Motion No. 44, brought forward by my colleague from Surrey Centre, is about. Permanent residency for temporary foreign workers is a comprehensive plan to address many of our labour shortages. It would continue to build our country, to build Canada.
Motion No. 44 builds on the success of our Atlantic immigration program, our temporary resident to permanent resident pathway program, rural and northern immigration programs, agri-food immigration pilot and provincial nominee programs. We have learned a lot from all of these programs, including what works and what does not and how to best address our labour shortages, all while working with our partners, provinces, employers, businesses, stakeholders and communities.
Temporary foreign workers know our culture, our work environment, our standards, and our health and safety standards. They have enough language proficiency to do their job, whether driving a truck, understanding our rules of the road or being able to get the licences they require. They also have to be proficient when working at construction sites, in terms of health and safety, or working in food processing or agriculture, and understanding how to work on a farm.
They have settled, and they have already contributed. They pay taxes. They want an opportunity to grow deep roots, to raise their families and become a part of the Canadian family, not just temporarily for the season, and not just for a couple of years, or four or six years, while having to renew their temporary foreign status year over year. They want to stay here permanently, and we want them to be here. Motion No. 44 is the road map to that.
I have spoken to so many temporary foreign workers. Tears come to their eyes because they want to be here to be a part of Canada and to grow their families here. However, there are barriers when it comes to language proficiency and formal education, be it high school or higher education. Some may say that those are low-skilled jobs. I would suggest that those with Ph.D.s, and there may be some in the chamber, try to frame a home, put a brick wall together through masonry, or put up a piece of Sheetrock or drywall. These are skilled professions. they take a lot of work and a lot of skill. All of these workers are able to do these jobs so well, and we need them.
We talk about what we are achieving here in Canada. As we continue to grow with our population, people need a place to live, a place to call home. It takes these construction workers and those transporting all of those construction materials to make that happen. As we build, over these next three or four years, 100,000 more new homes, we will do it through our many temporary foreign workers. Why would we not want to keep them here permanently? This is what Motion No. 44 is all about.
It is about continuing to grow our country the way it has from its inception, through waves of immigration, and with people who roll up their sleeves, who are here to work hard and who have the spirit of Canada, of building our country. I thank my parents, Maria Fonseca and Joaquim Fonseca for coming here. Mom worked in health care while Dad worked in a factory after they had left a fascist dictatorship in Portugal. I am so proud that they worked hard.
Unless Motion No. 44 gets done, people like my parents would not be able to come to Canada. Let us all support Motion No. 44 and make sure we help our great country and those who want to be part of it.
