Citizenship and Immigration committee  And ask the carriers more.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One other thing I'd just like you guys to ponder in your committee is the sharing of information. I know that there are privacy issues, but if companies agreed to release their information--that they're a member, or that they have positive LMOs--as a private industry, we wouldn't necessarily need to rely on government.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Tim Hortons? I have lots of spouses.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wanted to make sure I didn't lie: she's my check. She came through the program, so if I were lying, she could say no....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We've had a lot. We've processed or fielded applicant inquiries from over a thousand people since 2006. As I said, we have 91 foreign workers working for our company right now. We've lost 175, though; that's a huge number—lots at the beginning, when we were learning the process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is so for the most part. One of the issues was that when they got their permanent residency, we experienced a kind of turnover at that stage. We lost a fair number of drivers once they had it, so what we've said is that we need to get better at our hiring process to determine....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm sorry. Did that answer your question?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Do you mean harmonization in the PN programs between the provinces?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There are variances. Manitoba was kind of a leader in the west for the PN program. We've modelled some things that have worked well for them--in Saskatchewan, from what I understand, and in Alberta. B.C. is new for us. We're at a NOC C level, so it's all pilot projects, whereas in Alberta and Saskatchewan they've now made it part of their PN program, just within this past spring.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Definitely. We're just now looking at going to countries where the first language is not English. Up until 2008, we've predominantly brought in drivers whose first language was English, so we didn't have the language issue. We are doing an extensive research program in trips to Ukraine, which would be, for our company, the next place we would bring drivers from.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was first in Ukraine in September, and we will not see our first Ukrainian drivers until June. I went in September and I interviewed in Ukrainian, through a translator—I don't speak Ukrainian--and I said, “You are an excellent candidate. You speak no English.” Then I went back in February and re-interviewed those drivers, and it was amazing to see the improvement from September to February in their English level, and they're going to improve even more until June.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As an employer who switched LMOs for employees, we've had other drivers come to us from other companies that are involved in the program. That process is relatively easy for an employer who is similar to us, who has bulk LMO allocation. So I think the issue is, if employees lose their work permit through no cause of their own—that is, they get laid off, in the instance of Dell yesterday in Edmonton—where they had no control over the outcome of their work permit, there could be something built into the system for those instances.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, I need you to make change happen.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have a whole bunch more.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's a very important issue in my job.