I'm not really saying that there should be a difference in wages. It's just that when you're talking about low-skilled workers, you're talking about people who are having to maintain some sort of household or living conditions here and send money back home, because that's why they are here. It is to improve conditions for their families back home.
You keep talking about people circumventing the system and saying that people who are doing things honestly are being punished. However, in the Toronto area--that's the area with which I'm quite familiar--there are tens of thousands of skilled workers who are working and living underground. They have come here on either visitors' visas or work permits or have claimed refugee status and have failed claims. So their children are going to school, especially if they've claimed refugee status in the past, but they are being exploited, many of them by builders. The consumer isn't the beneficiary of this exploitation, and neither is the government.
They're not paying taxes. They're not getting health care. They don't have any insurance when they're laid off. And yet they have been living here and raising their children for years and years. Their wives probably aren't working, and they're struggling.
Do you see a problem offering these people--I know that amnesty is a big, bad, dirty word, and I'm not sure why--an amnesty of sorts? We haven't had an amnesty in over 30 years. This would give these people and their wives an opportunity to come forward, get temporary work permits for up to two years, and build a channel to also--