Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Page and your associates, for coming here today. You play a vital role in giving parliamentarians the straight goods on what's happening with the nation's economic outlook and finances. We appreciate your accurate and very timely projections.They are as disturbing, though, as the projections yesterday that we heard from the Governor of the Bank of Canada--that we are going into a slowdown.
I want to quote from your report yesterday:
The weakness in near-term growth pushes the economy further below its productive capacity resulting in an increase in the unemployment rate.
I see that you see a sharp spike in unemployment in 2012. I'd like to start by asking you how that translates into the number of families who will lose a breadwinner because of unemployment over the course of the next period, and whether you see measures the government could be taking, investments the government could be making, to ensure this slowdown is as least harsh as possible on Canadian families.