Mr. Speaker, it will not be a very merry Christmas for more than a million Canadians who remain unemployed despite Liberal promises of jobs, jobs, jobs.
There is a terrible human cost to unemployment which is nearly double that of our largest trading partner, the U.S.A., whose average is 5.4 per cent.
However, a new federal study also points to dollar costs of $29 billion to $77 billion in lost productivity, plus $14 billion in health, crime and other social costs for the year 1994 alone.
The sorry fact is that Canada's net job creation from 1993 to 1995 inclusive was nearly 25,000 less than the number of immigrants admitted during those same years. Consumer bankruptcies were at a record high of 65,432 last year, with three million people on welfare and 2.9 million who collected unemployment insurance. Years of Liberal and Tory mismanagement have created this bleak result.
Merry Christmas, Canada, from another caring, sharing Liberal government.