Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments, but he seems to underplay what has been a dramatic and tragic rise in youth unemployment. He sees table 4 in the report, like we all do, which shows the rate of youth unemployment when the Conservatives took office, or just after, at 15.7%, rising in 2013 to 20.1%. The increase has been dramatic in provinces like my own province of British Columbia, where it is 66%.
These are tragedies. As the member for Chambly—Borduas spoke about just a few minutes ago, there is scarring that takes place permanently with that degree of youth unemployment. We already have record levels of student debt across the country, so young people are now mortgaged in many ways. They have record levels of student debt, and now, under the current Conservative government, we are seeing record levels of youth unemployment.
How are they going to pay down their student debt? How are they going to actually move to a career when we have unemployment rates that are skyrocketing under the current Conservative government? Why have the Conservatives not undertaken the suggestions that have been put forward by the opposition, including by the NDP, that would actually serve to reduce the high levels of youth unemployment we are seeing in this country?