Mr. Speaker, what the Conference Board is saying is that low productivity is the primary reason for the lack of investment in research and development and the lack of job training. A distinction must be made.
My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. If it had wanted to bring back the sort of job market the people of Quebec and of Canada had in 1989, in terms of the unemployment rate and the participation rate, this government would have had to create over one and a half million jobs since it came to power. According to its own statistics, the government has created only 669,000 jobs. It still has over 800,000 to go.
Does the Deputy Prime Minister realize that, at the rate this government is going with job creation, it would take at least four more years before we see conditions similar to those of seven years ago before the last recession?