Citizenship and Immigration committee  For the individuals who have submitted an application that's currently in the system, I think it's simply an abuse of power to tell people who have been waiting years—and in many cases, it is years—“Sorry, you have to start over again.” In that regard, they would have to possibly resubmit their application, maybe wait to get their fees refunded by the government, and maybe if they resubmit it, they may or may not meet the categories the government determined they fall into.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, as a democracy, I also think that the government spending, which has been reported in the media as $1 million on an advertisement campaign for a proposed amendment that is yet to be approved by Parliament and essentially gives the public no meaningful input as to how they can respond to the proposed amendments and changes that the government is contemplating....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Both my colleague and I will respond. I have one quick point. There is no question that a large part of these changes are to deal with the so-called--I would characterize it--skill shortages in the country. The amendments are essentially to allow the minister to determine the categories of immigrants that will be let in to meet the skills shortages that employers continue to argue exist in the country.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would simply advise the government and the minister to take the changes she wants to consider on immigration and put them in a process that's transparent, and to have meaningful consultation across the country. Canadians as a whole, regardless of what part of the country they're from, and especially those families and individuals who have been waiting in the queue for quite some time to have their application dealt with to get their families here, are very frustrated.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We will try to be as brief as we can, recognizing the time constraints of the committee this morning. Let me thank the committee for allowing us to present before you on behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, essentially coast to coast. But more important, we will submit a comprehensive brief to the committee.

Human Resources committee  I'll let my colleague comment, but I just want to make one point first. The CLC has had a working group of affiliates from right across the country looking at this issue and sharing their experiences with what's going on with the foreign workers program and how it impacts every province.

Human Resources committee  I thank you for the question. We have been arguing for some time that a secretariat could play a useful role, because the reality is that almost all the professions we're struggling with in regard to recognition are provincially regulated. The Ontario government recently put forth what I thought was a very constructive strategy on how they're going to start to now deal with it.

Human Resources committee  Despite the human rights complaint being lodged with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, justice still has not been achieved for these workers. The company has moderately raised the wages. I'll just focus on one area in conclusion. The foreign worker program needs sweeping reform. The CLC calls for six key changes: The first is to establish a strong compliance, enforcement, and monitoring mechanism for the foreign worker before any further expansion of the streamlining process.

Human Resources committee  First of all, I want to thank the committee again for the opportunity for us to present to the committee today on behalf of the congress. We have circulated copies of our brief. It's fairly detailed and I hope the committee members do have the time to read it at some point. Most of the issues that we're going to raise in our highlights I think are covered in our brief.