That is why I am greeting you. You have thrown me off my stride slightly, but I will try to interest you, and I will take this opportunity to say that when members speak in a House with the composition of this one, it is always interesting to have the Speaker take an interest in our remarks, even if he does not agree with them. I am quite aware that it does not matter whether or not the Speaker agrees with what we are saying, but I feel that his interest is very supportive for members who rise to speak and to try to defend the interests of their constituents and of the public generally.
That being said, I will return to what I was saying about the federal minimum wage bill, which will bring the wage paid workers in areas under federal jurisdiction into line with that paid in areas under provincial jurisdiction. I was saying, then, that those who are not in agreement with a decent minimum wage should remember that all those without an income, wherever they may be, are largely responsible for driving the economy, particularly in slow periods. You do not invest in Honolulu on a minimum wage. Your investments are limited to paying your grocery bills and buying the necessities of life for your children.
I would also like to take this opportunity to draw attention to something that is extremely troubling. In one of the latest publications of the OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, of which Canada is a member, one of 28 members, there is a table showing the percentage of low wage earners in all OECD countries. Believe it or not, Canada has the second highest, right after the United States. This is very troubling.
Obviously, when you realize that the minimum federal wage is $4, you might say it is understandable. However, I know that this category of minimum wage earners is so small in number that it could not have had an impact; nonetheless, the fact that Canada is the second country after the United States with regard to the prevalence of low wages is significant.
But worse yet, Canada is the country were the gap between incomes in the first quintile and the fifth quintile is the widest. This means that on a income scale of five, it is in Canada that the gap is the widest, wider that in the United States. This is what I noticed in that same table. I know that the OECD compiles statistics from data freely provided by member countries.
This is an extremely disturbing fact, which makes this bill even more necessary, even though it is only a tiny drop in the bucket.
This is not all. The parliamentary secretary stressed how important the reform he called "updating the employment insurance" was. I would like to mention two things. According to a report published yesterday by Statistics Canada, its second job survey-it conducts two surveys, one by phone to compile the monthly statistics and a more lengthy one using employers's payrolls-shows that in the past year the net job loss in Ontario was 50,000 while it was 34,000 in Quebec, this according to payroll data.
This is in blatant contradiction with the government's boastful pat-on-the-back attitude with regard to the economic situation. The truth is ordinary people do not believe the recession is over, no matter what statistics say. The truth is there has never been such a wide gap among Canadians in terms of income, as shown by the statistics published by the OECD.
The truth is averages often hide gaps which might be extreme, which brings us back to basics, namely, the situation of those in need. This in turn brings us back to the need for job creation.
I will not be able to talk long about the fact that the employment insurance premiums now required of SMEs which were previously exempted for employees working less than 15 hours are having a
serious impact on these businesses, as is the case in my riding and as my constituents told me this week.
In conclusion, I will say that this bill is long overdue, but that it is only a drop in the bucket to improve the situation of ordinary people and promote job creation.