Thank you to all of our witnesses for being brief. This is difficult. We're very restricted, as you can imagine, in this study as we make recommendations to the government and the finance minister. Mr. Parent, in particular, thank you for your testimony today.
One of the challenges that we start with as we look at recommendations to the government is to try to understand the Canadian economy's health or weakness, depending on your perspectives.
Mr. Hodgson, I want to ask you what your perspective is on private sector job growth over the last year or year and a half within the Canadian economy. Would you describe it as robust and trending in the positive direction? How many private sector jobs have been created in Canada in the last year?