Citizenship and Immigration committee  That would be wonderful for us and for our employers.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think we have a problem having people come to Canada as temporary workers if they see a pathway to permanent residency. The problem we have in Canada is that we're competing with other places too. The European Union has labour mobility and people can go from eastern Europ

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Obviously, for the needs of our industry, we would like them to become permanent. If they can come from abroad as permanent residents to the country, that's wonderful. However, we're not necessarily asking for that. I would quite endorse the comments of the last speaker of the la

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If the Government of Canada wanted to help us, we obviously wouldn't say no—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was just going to get to that. We're not asking for that. We would gladly go, as would our employers. We would set up the basic training that you need to get on job sites in Ontario—the WHMIS, health and safety, fall arrest, working at heights, confined space training. With ou

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have to—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Lots of people would come from Portugal, Croatia, all across the former Yugoslavia, eastern Europe, Romania. We would take them from anywhere, but we have trouble with the language.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm telling you, we will and we try, but the ability to get construction workers here and keep them here on a permanent basis is somewhat limited.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, we can't. In our specific industry, with the carpenters and other skilled trades, we are going to need immigrants. The problem is magnified, because a lot of the places we traditionally got our skilled trades from—parts of Europe and so forth—are experiencing exactly the same

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, the impact in my particular industry is that our employers can't take jobs on. This means that it takes longer to get construction projects built, particularly infrastructure projects, or it costs more. That has an impact on all Canadians. There are certain projects that ju

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can say categorically that in the construction industry in Ontario I have never come across a reluctance by any employer to hire immigrants. The industry in which I'm privileged to work is an industry that is now, and by tradition has largely been, immigrants of all sorts of di

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My name is Mark Lewis. I have the great privilege of being the general counsel for the Carpenters' District Council of Ontario and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. We are a union. We represent all 16 local unions of the carpenters' union across the pr