Human Resources committee  No. I don't really know how much of that has been implemented, but my sense is that it wasn't really.... It sort of stopped after it was released.

Human Resources committee  I'm sure it is possible to look at that question as to why the number of people with minimum wage has increased. Typically, when we go through a severe recession and a rise in the unemployment rate, obviously people who are unemployed look for anything they can find. There's a po

Human Resources committee  In general with the transfer, I don't think there are many links, actually. The money is transferred to the provinces and they normally spend it as they wish, whether it's for the health program or educational or social programs or equalization. Health is a little bit different k

Human Resources committee  In the case of the kind of data I mentioned, they get information for different occupations in different parts of the country. You can drill down to detail, for example, on chefs in one city in Saskatchewan or in Alberta—to whether there are enough chefs there or whether there is

Human Resources committee  I'm not sure but real-time data is obviously very difficult to get because real-time data, in my mind, means that you have the data for this month. Surveys normally take time to conduct and then it takes time to make them ready. So for example, if you survey on a continuous basis

Human Resources committee  If we need national data, and that is what we need for the labour market, we have a national statistical agency. They are very good at what they are doing. They have a very good international reputation. So really, the focus should be on Statistics Canada and how they can collect

Human Resources committee  Do you mean the money on the job grant, or...?

Human Resources committee  No, we have not done any studies on that.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. I have a couple of things. The survey was conducted in 2011. So, even if it is released it will only show the situation in 2011. It's not a continuing survey. The design of the survey, actually, is very good in terms of the kind of data that we need to asses

Human Resources committee  I can't really, because I don't really know exactly what's behind that. One of the things that we have said publicly is that to have an effective program—whether it's the temporary foreign workers or job grants, or any other kind of program that affects the labour market—you need

Finance committee  In that sense, when government is spending, government consumption is part of the national GDP.

Finance committee  There is no ideology here. This is my training, our training, as economists, and the experience that we have had over 30 years working in this area which leads to our conclusions, and the studies. There is no ideology at all.

Finance committee  Compared to others, yes, but not compared to—

Finance committee  Based on that study, yes, it seems that we are above the Americans, but whether that's a good criterion or not, I don't know.

Finance committee  We look at the data that exists, and there are three sources of data. One is the CFIB, one is the Conference Board, and the other is StatsCan. We use the Conference Board data as the main data source, and then CFIB as a supporting database.