Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sorry, could you just repeat the essence of your point? I was preparing another comment.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would have a problem with that too. There may be cases where a temporary foreign worker then qualifies for permanent residence here. I think there is some provision for that. But it's true, you can't let them stay indefinitely; you're going to have social and other kinds of pro

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's certainly an element. I think people should be protected if they're coming in as temporary foreign workers. I would like to comment, if I may, though, on a couple of points that have been made. Roslyn Kunin just said we need more immigrants. The fact is that immigrants h

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We may find we need some of them on a permanent basis, but I think we should be more cautious in that sense.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll just comment on what Roslyn Kunin said in that respect. We do have a very tight labour market right now. I am not quite so convinced it will always stay that tight. We're having a boom. The American economy is doing well. I think we could well have changes. We won't before t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, and furthermore, the idea that we're going to be perennially short of workers I think is questionable. A hundred years ago a British demographer said we had 14 workers for every non-worker. Most people died when they were 65. It's now down to four. It will be down to 2.6 as t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I will. You raised a number of interesting points, Mr. Telegdi. I'll start with the last one and work back, because I remember it most clearly. The Chinese labourers who built the railways came in as unskilled workers, and when the railway was finished, the thinking was that we

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to talk, first of all, about labour shortages in general, then go on to temporary foreign workers, and finish up with undocumented workers, very briefly. I think you have to look at what constitutes a labour shortage. Certainly, we have the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. My reason for that emphasis was that I think our dollars will be far better spent. They'll go much further. And I think we should make a substantial contribution to helping those in the area. If we bring some here—we've already committed to bringing in, I believe, 1,400—we

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't have a problem with some people coming in, and I might mention that some of my in-laws were boat people from Vietnam. On the other hand, we have some rules or lack of rules in place that tend to get the system flooded. We don't have any first-country-of-origin rules, and

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Not discourage everyone, but it is clear that we have a lot coming here who wouldn't be considered refugees by any other country. So there are some problems, but I wouldn't say to totally stop people.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd like to make one more comment.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Chairman. Canada has a strong tradition of providing assistance to refugees and we should continue to do so. By the same token, we have to look carefully at the scope and the cost of the assistance we are providing and determine how we can apply our resources in the m