Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's against the law. It's against the Fair Trading Act.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The short answer is yes. In fact, it's one of the recommendations that we included in the report from our foreign temporary advocate office. I hope you guys get a chance to look at this. We spent a lot of time working on the front lines on this issue, and as a result of our experience, we put together about 21 recommendations, about one-third of which relate directly to the federal realm.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Canada is a country that's been built on immigration. We in the labour movement acknowledge that and we celebrate it. We also agree, here in Alberta and across the country, that there is a constant need for people to come to the country from elsewhere in the world. That's how we built our economy and that's how we'll do it in the future.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  But there are all sorts of problems.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  A major, and we think significant, change is the use to which the program is being put by employers. When this program was first established more than 40 years ago, it was clear that the temporary foreign worker program should only be used as a stopgap measure and as a tool of last resort for human resources.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Probably because of the way the program was initially organized, and also, frankly, it's an effort to control the workers. They want to know where they are. That's speculation, but the practice and the result is that employers are able to exercise undue influence on the workers because they can't move from one employer to another, as Canadians can, if they're mistreated.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With all due respect, these transactions are not always happening in other countries. They're often being charged here in Alberta or in other provinces; we just don't know about it. One of the big problems is that the brokers themselves are largely unregulated. As a result of the expansion of this program, we've created a very shady industry with very few rules.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The provincial level of government, and to their credit, our province has actually stepped up to the plate in the last couple of months—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The temporary foreign worker program is a federal program, which is jointly administered by the Department of Immigration and—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm saying the federal government, more than any other level of government, is responsible for the program and that more than any level of government it has dropped the ball in terms of making sure this program works.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  But the federal government is responsible for issuing the labour market opinions through HRSDC, and you're responsible for issuing the work permits through Immigration. One of the things we're saying is that the federal government has put in place no mechanisms, no enforcement, to make sure that's what is actually written on the LMOs in terms of wages, for example, the place of employment, the kind of employment.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The wages for temporary foreign workers are clearly outlined in the labour market opinion. And what we're finding—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  By the federal level. What we're finding—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The wages are set in the labour market opinion for the workers we're talking about. One of our points is that—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With due respect, I disagree. We have addressed these issues with the provincial level of government, and we've addressed them very vigorously. We want to take this opportunity to talk about that portion of the responsibility that falls in the federal realm. What I'm trying to say is that the labour market opinions, as an example, do clearly outline what wages are paid, but in many cases we're finding that—