Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Page, thank you for appearing before us.
Currently in Canada, we are struggling with a labour market problem. In the manufacturing sector, which generates wealth, over 350,000 jobs have been lost and have not come back. The unemployment rate is increasing and the workforce participation rate is decreasing; many people have given up on finding work and 27% of part-time employees would like to work full-time.
In addition, $500 billion in liquidities are not reinvested in businesses. The reinvestment rate is extremely low. If only 10% of those $500 billion were reinvested, would the situation be fundamentally different in terms of revenue? It would be like the opposite of the Greek syndrome. In fact, Greece is making budget cuts, and the more they do, the more unemployment there is; the more unemployment there is, the greater their deficit is. Here, in Canada, if we invested in job creation, would the opposite not be happening, that is, by creating wealth and jobs, would we not be stimulating consumption and generating revenue for the government?