Mr. Speaker, a while ago I asked the finance minister to explain to Canadians why the government had broken its promise to create jobs and how did he feel about the government telling Canadians that they will have to accept and get used to high employment? The government does not have any long term vision of how to deal with Canada's unemployment.
Canadians know why we have high levels of unemployment. It is because federal economic and social policies continue to create unemployment not only through significant numbers of layoffs of federal civil servants, but there is no commitment to full employment. That has been made clear by this government.
There is no long term economic or industrial strategy, no vision of how to address the very real challenges posed by continue globalization of trade, no strategy for the economic advancement of less developed regions, no rejection of failed policies of privatization and deregulation, no long term vision.
Quite plainly the federal government has its priorities wrong. It has abandoned middle class and working Canadians and instead has listened to and responded to the concerns of its wealthy corporate friends.
Recently there have been numerous reports of record corporate and bank profits at a time of continued and unacceptably high unemployment. The heads of major corporations are being paid at a rate 212 times that of the pay of average workers. The gap between the executive suite and the shop floor has increased fivefold in the last 30 years.
Something is wrong when a bank president or a large corporation president can announce record profits one day, cash a six figure paycheque the next, lay off a thousand workers on day three, on day four hold a news conference to demand that the government force middle class families to get by with less, and on day five attend a $1,000 per plate Liberal Party fundraising gala.
Something is tragically wrong when the Prime Minister and the federal finance minister support all this and wash their hands of their electoral commitment to get Canadians working again. It is dead wrong in terms of the direction for Canada.
The government is irredeemably short term in its economic policy. The Liberals, Conservatives and Reformers are obsessed with the market even when the market fails. The government runs things for the few at the top, not the many.
We can begin to seriously address Canada's high unemployment levels only when we have a national reconciliation on the economy. There needs to be a co-ordinated approach in which all the major stakeholders play a role in generating a vision for the Canadian economy. A critical part of this must be the full blown pursuit of full employment and a commitment to full employment.
The ability of high tech and knowledge based industries of the economy of the future to provide jobs needed by Canadians must be seriously addressed as competition from newly industrializing countries continues to undermine traditional industrial sectors.
Measures to encourage industrial and business innovation and a financial sector committed to job creation must be developed. Our educational systems and our commitment to education must be revamped to address these challenges, and the federal government has a major role to play in all this.
Only when Canada knows where it is going as a country can Canadians design and implement the effective measures needed to ensure we get there. The federal government should show leadership in this regard, not just wash its hands of the problems faced by the millions of unemployed Canadians and their families across this country.
Needless to say an important part of this strategy is for Canada to work with other countries to make full employment the goal of global economic development. The presence of unprecedented numbers of unemployed across developed nations and in Canada indicates how far away that goal is.
I challenge the federal government to look beyond the status quo and toward proposals that promote real and effective change. Canadians are demanding it and it is time for the government to take a lead in meeting those demands. After all, in the red book it promised it would.