Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the opportunity to participate in your study of the service sector. In the next 10 minutes, Ron Reaman and I will provide you with an overview of Canada's food service industry in terms of its size, scope, employment, and performance in rec

Human Resources committee  Well, in a sense, it is part of our recommendations in that we're saying we have to streamline the foreign worker permit process. Basically what we're saying is eliminate that requirement for advertising jobs. We're saying that if in that particular position in that particular re

Human Resources committee  Yes, it's definitely a part of our recommendations.

Human Resources committee  Our industry works with another sector council, the Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council, who also have employability programs for aboriginal groups. Our members also try to recruit through aboriginal employment centres—I would say with mixed success, to be perfectly frank wit

Human Resources committee  That's just one of many recommendations.

Human Resources committee  We hire students right now for just the summer months. We'll hire students whenever they want to work, and one of the things we offer is a lot of flexibility in terms of work hours, so depending on where you are in the country—

Human Resources committee  As you're saying, we're looking at this spreading right across the country; we're hearing more and more from our members in every part of the country. When you have to throw back your keys and say “I have to close my restaurant because I don't have people to work in my restaurant

Human Resources committee  I don't disagree with you at all.

Human Resources committee  In my industry, absolutely.

Human Resources committee  We do have restaurants in pretty well every community in every riding across the country; I don't think there's a single riding in the country where there isn't food service. So there have to be restaurants in that riding as well. I'm not familiar enough with the ridings to know

Human Resources committee  I fully agree.

Human Resources committee  Yes, I would agree with that. Immigration isn't going to be the whole solution, but it's certainly a part of the solution. Right now, the vast majority of positions within our industry are barred from this country based on the point system. Although we do have recent immigrants

Human Resources committee  They've come in and they've quickly become disillusioned with our country because they're not able to get jobs where they want to get jobs. In terms of the temporary foreign worker program, our members are saying that the people they're bringing in under that program want to st

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. It has to be part of the solution, and we have to bring people in who are going to have families here and are going to have young kids who are going to be able to grow up and work in all of our industries.

Human Resources committee  But we also have to look at all of those who are unemployed in our country and find out how to get them into the workforce. Quite frankly, for some of those people who are regularly unemployed, we have to find a way to be able to match them with jobs in those periods when they're