I have a couple of questions for Mr. Fong.
On page 7 of the report, I note that with regard to part-time employment by sector, the three fastest-growing areas are education; information, culture and recreation; and accommodation and food services. These define my riding in downtown Toronto in many ways in terms of the digital media sector, the culture sector, as well as the hospitality sector. On the next page, what I also note is that with regard to temporary employment share by sector, those areas with the fastest-growing employment rates are also the areas with the fastest-growing temporary employment dynamics. This means that the new growth in the job market is in precarious work. That is why it's an emerging issue as opposed to one that you can go back 10 years and measure very effectively.
That being said, you raised the point that someone earning $200,000 as an IT specialist working contract to contract is not necessarily precariously employed. The phrase that I often hear when discussing this in the community is that they are a bike accident away from being precariously employed. In other words, all it takes is a momentary change in their life circumstance and suddenly that $200,000 is unavailable to them. Additionally, if they take time away from the constant renewal of contracts, they get off the conveyor belt of contracts and all of a sudden find themselves in a position where they can't find new work. Then their skills start to fall behind. So, in light of the fact that salary isn't the issue, but rather the precariousness of the contracts regardless of salary, what are the things that government could do, instead of fighting precariousness, to understand how to accommodate it and protect people who find themselves in that situation? There's this notion that you have to stop it as opposed to accommodate it. Maybe the thing to do is to accommodate it more substantially.