Finance committee  There's an issue with respect to filling jobs. If you're just trying to fill jobs, then it doesn't matter what types of jobs—good jobs, bad jobs, service jobs, manufacturing jobs, resource jobs. I think you also have to specify exactly what types of jobs. You want good, high-payi

Finance committee  I think the problem with a lot of these.... I haven't studied the Manitoba program, and I plan to do that at some point.

Finance committee  Yes. The problem is that you have these applicants who were accepted, and they were accepted under the old criteria. These are no longer the criteria you would want to use to pick the workers who are most suitable for the types of employment currently being offered. There are ann

Finance committee  I just want to make one comment. Because of the large extent of mortgage insurance that CMHC covers, if there were to be a correction in the Canadian housing market, the financial picture of CMHC could look quite different than it does now.

Finance committee  The agricultural program is a program that's been around for a long time. There are very small numbers of workers in the aggregate. They are largely seasonal workers who come in to pick crops. They come in on a regular basis from year to year and then they go home. The program, I

Finance committee  That was a program that had its own special issues. What has happened, though, is that the government has expanded the temporary worker program by a quantum. They have applied it to a number of areas where you wouldn't think we would need temporary foreign workers, including are

Finance committee  I have concerns about the proliferation of these provincial nominee programs and how they've been functioning. The number of workers being brought in on these has gone up by maybe four or so over the last few years. The problem is that—

Finance committee  What you're doing is reducing the share of the immigration intake being scrutinized under Canada-wide criteria to make sure that you're bringing the best people in. Provinces have their own priorities about who they bring in. My understanding is that there are concerns in the de

Finance committee  Thus we support the immigration policy measures in part 4 of Bill C-38. Having said that, I would like to go on and say that more definitely needs to be done to limit the numbers of immigrants, since the large number is what's causing the deterioration in performance. It's not o

Finance committee  I was just going to say that the climate isn't very favourable. There is a lot of pressure for higher levels of immigration. The minister has even talked about increasing numbers to 400,000. In our view, the only way to fundamentally reform immigration is to take the steps the mi

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to have received your invitation to testify on the immigration measures in Bill C-38, part 4, although it's a very small part of a rather large pie. For background, I'm an economist who has studied immigration issues. I collaborated with Pro

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think you are raising a very important point. It is absolutely necessary to reduce the delays in processing applications.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think you have a very good point. The situation was unsustainable under the old act where you had the “shall” clause that said they had to process all of these applications. The way they set it up with the points, if you got a minimum score, you were accepted. So the immigratio

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would be much better.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the government spending on resettlement recognizes the fact that over many years many immigrants have been admitted without language skills, without job skills, without knowing how to get a job. We have to spend this money: these people are here; they're Canadians now. We