Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. member and the answer to the question to which he responded.
I could not help but notice that he, like the Minister of Finance, put a lot of stock in the financial deficit of the country, the plans the government has put in place, the targets and the forecasting it has done with respect to the deficit.
I cannot help thinking the hon. member has forgotten about the second deficit we have, the second problem we have to fight, the human deficit caused by the number of job losses that have occurred in Canada, the number of people unemployed from coast to coast, the number of people willing, ready and able to take up work to support the country, to pay taxes and to help reduce the financial debt of the country. However, those people have been denied jobs by the private sector and by the policies of the government and they will continue to be denied jobs.
There are no plans in the budget to deal with unemployment. There are no targets set to bring down unemployment. There are no forecasts for what the rate of unemployment will be at the end of this budgetary period. There is a complete lack of understanding on the part of the government with respect to jobs.
The government talks about its partnership with the private sector in creating jobs. I read a piece in the New York Times which talked about how the private sector in the United States has dealt with jobs over the last few years, a time of prosperity. AT&T has cut 123,000 jobs since 1990. Delta Airlines has cut 18,000 jobs. Eastman Kodak has cut 16,000 jobs. IBM has cut 35,000 jobs. Sears has cut 50,000 jobs. DEC has cut 20,000 jobs. Lockheed Martin has cut 15,000 jobs.