As most Canadians hear the news that a recovery is under way, one would naturally assume that it's associated to new job creation, yet we see that the private sector is not creating those jobs. At the end of the summer, in replying about the job market in the Financial Post, you said:
It’s been pretty weak. It’s been almost all part time so therefore it’s not generating the kind of income you would get from a usual 1 percent employment growth. We know that’s significantly less than we would expect to see in a well-performing economy.
The government has said that virtually 85% of all jobs created last year were full-time, yet this is noting a report that only a quarter of the jobs that were created were full-time and of lower quality.
I'm seeing two world views collide here, but yet the stats are the stats. The statistics point to something quite damaging, particularly on the manufacturing side.
I know you hesitate toward policy prescription, yet according to the Canadian manufacturers, we've lost 700,000 manufacturing jobs in Canada since 2002, and 400,000 manufacturing jobs since this government took office. They have not been replaced in overall terms.
Is there any particular monetary effort you would see from the government to reverse this worrisome trend, or are these jobs gone and not coming back?