Mr. Speaker, if the opposition makes small mistakes, the government and its finance minister in particular make big ones.
The finance minister's deficit reduction efforts are more than timid. And his job creation efforts are non-existent. After the recession in 1982, it took only three years to restore employment and labour force participation to their prerecession levels. Today, six years after the last recession, the Canadian labour market is still 879,000 jobs short. This is a disaster. Yesterday, while recognizing this is a disaster, the minister still replied that his government will not do anything about it.
How can the Minister of Finance admit that the job market is in a disastrous situation and refuse at the same time to put in place real measures to improve the employment situation in Canada?