Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One last thing I'd like to point out is that I've met since with probably three or four different companies in the business of providing workers. Regardless of whether you use an individual, as I chose to, or you use a company, the workers can still take off and disappear. One thing the companies bring to the table is that they guarantee you--by whatever means, I don't know--that these people will not leave, and if they do leave, you will have somebody else to replace them immediately.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In my area there are quite a few people from Mexico who are working on different farming operations. A lot of people have asked me, “Why wouldn't you bring people from Mexico? They're great workers.” I tried to bring people from Mexico. I was informed that they were not approved to work in my industry, that it was a Mexican government law that they could work only in industries where they could gain knowledge and take it back and apply it at home.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's what I was told at the time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think a lot of people just don't want to acknowledge the fact that they've been burned. There's a big lobster processing company in P.E.I., Ocean Choice International Inc. They're based in Newfoundland. They've had workers who have disappeared. There have been numerous cases in the news of people from Russia heading back home and not getting on the airplane.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Pretty much. I'm also the vice-president of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, so I'm in Ottawa quite often for meetings with government on aquaculture issues, and this is one thing that's always on the table--the temporary worker program. And I've been told on more than one occasion, “There's nothing we can do for you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Actually, numerous firms had called, and this kind of adds to the strange part of the story. A local person from Sri Lanka, who had lived in P.E.I. for close to 10 years, knew that I was looking for workers. He was quite an honourable person. He was the head chef at the local hospital in Charlottetown, he was the local head chef at a nice hotel in Charlottetown, and he was a very smart individual.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  When the contracts got signed, the Canadian government dealt with the government there. Those people had to go through security clearance, and they all had to be approved by the Canadian government in Sri Lanka in order to even come to Canada. So they were well informed and signed their contracts at the office, wherever the office was, in Sri Lanka.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's quite a story. We had numerous calls from different cities by Sri Lankans who lived in Canada. People would call. I was even advised at one point by a Sri Lankan who called from Ottawa and said that I really needed to drop this whole issue because of the whole Tamil Tiger situation, that waves were being made and that there were things I probably really didn't want to get into.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I believe the majority of them now--I can't speak for them all, because the ones who have been in contact with us seem to know where the rest of them are--have applied for refugee status. I really don't know how the system works. They have some kind of temporary status whereby they're allowed to work now.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, actually just a week and a half ago, a particular individual's T4 had already been mailed out--because we have to send out the T4s--and he e-mailed a second time inquiring why he hadn't received it yet. And yes, I did e-mail him back and said, “It's in the mail. And by the way, the cost of your plane ticket was this much, and we'd greatly appreciate your refunding the money that we paid to get you here.”

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We wrote many letters to every department we could think of, right through to the Prime Minister's Office. I even had a call from Stockwell Day.