International Trade committee  May I give you just a quick, personal example? I worked in Alberta for three years with a municipality and had an instance where a contractor and a couple of workers complained about the fact that Mexican workers were not as committed to safety. We had a very detailed conversation about what was happening.

International Trade committee  It's a jurisdictional issue, but initiatives are under way to address exactly the question you raise.

International Trade committee  I would tend to agree with you. I think the real risk is to quintessential middle-class Canadian jobs. When you're talking about entry-level, low-skilled employment, as we grow as an economy—and every economy as we industrialize—we stop doing the rudimentary things that are entry-level economic activities.

International Trade committee  Absolutely. You have to be responsive to those. We think that from time to time TFW programs have helped, but this is a different ball game.

International Trade committee  I'm sorry. Are you talking about the timing of provincial ratification of the same agreement?

International Trade committee  The interprovincial trade agreement.... It is, as I think Mr. Ritz mentioned, a slow-moving process. They've made some good progress out east. Some of the eastern provinces have now negotiated harmonized requirements. I'll give you an example. Sometimes there are really absurd differences that lead to inefficiencies.

International Trade committee  Again, we have a reasonably formed apprehension that it will become easier as time goes by. Under the much stricter stringent guidelines that we had previously, we had a case of a Chinese mining company operator wanting to bring in some 400 workers. They had managed to bring a fair number in already.

International Trade committee  Again, those are primarily market-driven and publicly funded. We agree; everyone has a different business model. The union industry has achieved its competitive advantage through investing more in training and development.

International Trade committee  Going back to the notion of demographic dividend, when any nation, any economy has access to a growing, young workforce, if you engage them through training and educational opportunities and get them into the workplace, that's decades of advantage to the economy. Leave them on the sidelines and we know what has happened in a number of developing nations where there is a young workforce that never got to participate.

International Trade committee  In our experience, it's to a much limited extent. Canada has not had a history of projecting its workforce in large numbers into other economies. Yes, we do sell technical skills and high-end engineering skills, etc., but we do not send plane loads of people to work on projects overseas.

International Trade committee  I'll give you a local example. In Manitoba the unionized construction industry and the unions that I represent have five training centres. Last year we spent over $4.5 million on training. The non-unionized construction industry has none. That's the comparison.

International Trade committee  It leaves it at a relative disadvantage when it comes to pure, straight-up cost. We're absorbing a cost by operating five training centres, very large training centres, in Winnipeg and the surrounding area that our competition simply does not. If we can get greater access purely on that surface-level cost advantage to non-Canadian participants, I just don't see how that results in a happy circumstance for either you, in your circumstance, or us.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. I indicated right at the very front that when there are fair trade agreements that eliminate artificial barriers to trading partners in a reciprocal way, we absolutely support free trade.

International Trade committee  We're currently working on a very substantive hydro installation in northern Manitoba, with about 10 billion dollars' worth of investment, and again, with great middle-class jobs for Canadians. We also simultaneously signed an agreement with the project owner that should supply shocks be posing risks to the project, we would support an application under the TFW program to engage a workforce.

International Trade committee  I wish it weren't, but it is. It's a very reasonably held apprehension, based on past experiences. Also, given the much more stringent requirements under the TFWP, we have had a number of issues with foreign workers not being treated to the same standards as we expect in Canada.