Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the minister and her officials for being here this morning.
Minister, as you know, our government introduced the economic action plan of 2009 to respond to the global recession. Canada has not only recovered all of the output and all of the jobs lost during the recession, but we have exceeded pre-recession levels. Over the last four years, employment has increased by more than one million Canadians. This gives Canada one of the strongest records on job growth among G-7 countries over this recovery.
Our government has recently introduced economic action plan 2014, the next chapter in our plan, which will lead us towards a balanced budget by 2015.
Minister, with that information, could you please inform the committee how the labour program has contributed towards balancing the budget while maintaining the high quality of service that we provide for Canadians?