We, all of us in this room, as patriotic Canadians, have to feel good when we look at ourselves compared to other countries. We are in a situation where, to start with, our balance sheet is in a very good position. That means we're resilient. We have the lowest debt-to-GDP among G7 countries. It's not the lowest by a little bit, it's half the average, so it's a very good starting point.
We have an unemployment rate that's gone from 7.1%, back in the time we got into office, down to about 5.8%, and about 600,000 new jobs have been created, which is the answer to your question. In a U.S. context that would be six million new jobs. These are big, big numbers, so this is very positive.
The growth rate we've seen over the last year and a half has been the fastest among G7 countries, about 3%.
We will, of course, face challenges going forward. We always will face challenges. But starting from a position like that, where more Canadians are working, where we have a great balance sheet, where we've seen the kind of growth that we've seen, allows us to deal with those challenges in a way that puts us in a favourable position, and I'm happy we're there.