Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to debate the government's budget implementation bill, Bill C-38, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act.
This is a very necessary bill. Procedurally, it follows the adoption of a very important budget that continues to move us on a low-tax track for jobs and growth. This builds on that. Of course, the government is razor focused on the economy. The government was given a strong mandate by Canadians to be focused that way.
The results speak well. There have been nearly 760,000 net new jobs, 90% of them full-time, since the height of the great recession. We have received international praise for our policies and the trend of our economy by the OECD and the IMF, among others. All three major credit rating agencies, Moody's, Fitch and Standard and Poor's, have reaffirmed our top credit rating. There are no issues in that regard, unlike other countries in the world.
Of course, we recognize that more can be done. There is an opportunity to do even more. There are Canadians who are still unemployed. We also recognize statistics from last year. There were some 250,000 unfilled jobs in Canada. We clearly have a need to connect Canadians to labour force realities here in Canada, even within their own labour markets. That is why we need greater efficiency with the employment insurance program.
We still have challenges to face with respect to improving our productivity and innovation. We are in a competition in the 21st century for not only global capital investment but for the most talented minds, those with the talent and skills sets from around the world, if we are going to persist in having a first world economy and first world standard of living by extension.
Now that we have passed the budget, it is important that we pass the implementation act to implement our far-reaching economic action plan 2012. We need to pass it now, not weeks or months from now. It is important that we pass it now.
By way of process, budgets are long-ranging in terms of their consultation. We started consulting extensively last fall. The budget itself was tabled some four months ago. We have had all kinds of debate about the direction of the country.
We have had lengthy debate already in the House of Commons. A full committee and an additional subcommittee conducted hearings with respect to the various aspects of this implementation act. I was able to participate in part of that. I spoke with the Retail Council of Canada, the Canadian Auto Workers Union and others.
I think the NDP members themselves probably agree we do not need any more debate on that. After all, yesterday they voted against sitting until midnight, so clearly they are not interested in debate any longer.
It is also important to pass the bill now because there are threats to the global economy still looming. In the United States unemployment is up recently. The eurozone woes are extremely well known. We do not want to delay implementing the budget and getting on with growing our economy.
There is context for the current budget implementation bill. Budget 2012 builds on previous budgets. There is a real logic to what the government has been doing through the economic action plan in 2009, the subsequent low-tax plan for jobs and growth. One could even go back further.
At the end of this month it will be eight years that I have been here and have been privileged to be the hon. member of Parliament for Essex.
In 2007 we brought in a budget and laid out a vision document called Advantage Canada. We tackled four major challenges: high Liberal taxes on business investment; low business investment, particularly in equipment and machinery technology; a skills shortage; and the forecasted rapid decline of the population over the coming decades.
We proposed five major advantages. First, a tax advantage, or as we like to think, a low-tax advantage. We have reduced all kinds of taxes and we continue to do that. Second, a fiscal advantage. Third, an entrepreneurial advantage, cutting red tape, which is a key move for ensuring our businesses move forward. Fourth, a knowledge advantage, so we could have the best educated, most skilled and most flexible workforce in the world. Fifth, an infrastructure advantage.
We brought in the Building Canada plan, which was an extensive seven-year, comprehensive infrastructure plan with many components to it. It has been helping to renovate and modernize our infrastructure not just for quality of life issues, but also to suit our economy moving forward. We are committed to that.
We brought in the borders and gateways fund as well. We have been acting consistently. Economic action plan 2012 continues to follow in that direction.
We need to pass Bill C-38 now for another reason that is a little more local for me and the Windsor Essex economy. There is a 9.9% unemployment rate, although that is down from well over 15% at the height of the great recession.
There is room for improvement. We need further economic development and diversification. We need to connect those who are unemployed with available jobs in the local workforce. The proposed EI changes, for example, become very clear. We need to give more job information to those individuals who are on EI claims, many of whom think they are faithfully pursuing their responsibilities by looking at job banks. Job banks show only a fraction of the jobs that are available to them.
We are connecting the temporary foreign worker program to the EI program so that permits for foreign workers are not given until local workers have an opportunity to connect to that. That is important. I look at the greenhouse industry in my district and the high tech industry. The high tech industry provides good paying jobs, yet there may be people who are not aware that jobs are available in that sector.
We are proposing sensible reforms.
There is also responsible resource development. The opposition is positive that resource development is not a good thing for the Ontario economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. I look at a company like Southwestern Manufacturing that made its exclusive fame at the time in the auto industry until tough times came to the auto industry. What has it done? The company has diversified. It has gone to the mining industry and the oil and gas industry. It does heavy machining, which is an easily transferrable skill from the auto sector to the needs of the economy. Half a trillion dollars in responsible resource development: that is a huge amount of investment potential in resource projects in the next 10 years. Mining is one of the fastest growing sectors in Canada. It provides good paying jobs for Canadians.
There is a responsible and balanced way to do this. How do we do responsible development? These measures are important for my region as well.
Innovation is important. I believe it was a former Chrysler executive who once said that the future of the auto industry was the six inches between our ears. When other countries are pulling back in a mode of austerity on innovation, this government is doubling down on that investment, doubling IRAP and focusing on commercialization. These are all important measures because innovation will drive high paying jobs for the future not just for my region, but right across this country.
I urge the opposition to reconsider and support Bill C-38.
