Human Resources committee  The rationale behind that measure was that these were areas of the program that were fairly heavily used and that were in generally low-skilled areas in which, in labour markets with above a 6% unemployment rate, there's an expectation that there will be more Canadians available for those jobs, so that measure was put in place.

Human Resources committee  I'm trying to remember whether the economic region that Whistler is in is above or below the 6%.

Human Resources committee  Below the 6%? They're not subject to the refusal to process.

Human Resources committee  Okay. So they are subject to the refusal to process. I do know that in the Whistler case, which I'm familiar with, they made particular use of the international mobility program. The actual use of what's now called the temporary foreign worker program was surprisingly small, but use was very significant in the international mobility program, including the international experience Canada program.

Human Resources committee  I think wage analysis would most likely fall under Employment and Social Development. We monitor wages quite carefully. We track wages for hundreds of different occupations and do so for each occupation in many regions across the country, and these are posted. These form the basis for the way we process the application, so that the employer has to pay above the prevailing wage in a given occupation.

Human Resources committee  I would hesitate to say that there's no wage.... I think it's a valid question. It's a difficult one to answer, and I don't have a definitive response, unfortunately.

Human Resources committee  I would say it's a concern of the department, which is why we set this prevailing wage, to make sure that a fair wage is set, but it's an open question. Wages are set at the margin, and it would be an interesting question for some more definitive economic analysis of what the overall impact of wage suppression is.

Human Resources committee  There's quite a bit of activity with provinces and territories. I have regular conversations with my counterparts on the labour market side, both with respect to sharing data on the use of the program so that we can orient training programs to maximize jobs for Canadians and also working with them on validating the needs for temporary foreign workers and determining the priorities for a given jurisdiction.

Human Resources committee  Again, I can't speak for the minister. I know she's eagerly awaiting the report of the committee, and I think her responses to this question to date have been all about having referred it for examination by this committee and looking forward to the report. There have been no other policy pronouncements on the future of the program.

Human Resources committee  I have some figures on that. You mentioned the number of staff we have on strength right now doing inspections. These are for both on-site inspections and other forms of inspections or reviews. There have been 6,280 inspections or reviews completed to date since April 2014. The on-site inspections are an activity that's a little newer in the tool kit.

Human Resources committee  Those are the on-site inspections of employers with temporary foreign workers.

Human Resources committee  There's considerable effort being put into improving the compliance in the program. Insofar as compliance is an objective, there's lots of emphasis being put on it, I guess I would say, in terms of the resourcing and the penalties that are in place.

Human Resources committee  The tip line is getting a fair bit of activity. We've had more than 3,800 tips received since it was set up, so there's a fair bit of input there.

Human Resources committee  That's since April 2014.

Human Resources committee  Yes, and those are sorted through. Some are very serious allegations and are, of course, referred to other law enforcement authorities, and many of them result in investigations by our own staff on employer non-compliance.