We are fans of the Canada summer jobs program. Thank you very much for raising that. Obviously, a five-minute testimony doesn't leave you with an awful lot of time to go through every issue exhaustively.
We are fans of the Canada summer jobs program. I will say, though, that small firms find that it is often very difficult to access. It does tend to be focused more heavily on larger businesses and community groups and organizations.
Small firms say the most stimulative effect they could have to help them create more jobs is to reduce the payroll tax burden. That's why we were big fans when Liberal governments in the past introduced a youth hires program. It was a terrific program that was well received by small business owners and had light paperwork requirements.
We were so excited when your party committed, as the centrepiece of your youth employment strategy, to introduce an EI holiday for 2016, 2017, and 2018. In fact, the budget didn't even talk about the fact that this had been cancelled. They didn't even tell us that it was cancelled, but as we found out later, it was replaced with an expert panel to study youth employment.
The Canada summer jobs program is a good one. It would have been far more powerful, and far more employees—youths—would be back in jobs right now, had you gone ahead with your own election promise to introduce the EI credit.