Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member across the aisle knows, the Prime Minister promised in the Speech from the Throne that we were committed to improving the governance and the management of the employment insurance account.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Liberal colleagues for their support in getting that throne speech passed so quickly through this House.
Before we discuss anything tonight, it is important that we understand Canada's current employment situation, as these facts are integral to any discussion of the EI program.
Since this government was elected almost two years ago, we have seen an astonishing number of new jobs being created, more than 500,000 to be exact. This year's numbers are looking equally good, with almost 200,000 new jobs being created this year alone. More than one-third, or better than 88,000, of those jobs have been created in the province of Quebec.
In addition, the average hourly wage rose by 2.4% in the first quarter of this year alone and the unemployment rate has dropped to the lowest point in 33 years at 5.8%. This is good news. It goes to shows that the hard work the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister have done to help manage our economy is beginning to pay dividends.
Thankfully, we have a labour market where more Canadians are working than ever before and the demand for labour is strong. Opportunities for work are abundant, especially among the skilled trades that are currently experiencing labour shortages across the country.
We have made clear our intention to consider improvements to the EI financing since we formed the government. The Speech from the Throne confirms that we will now be taking measures to improve the governance and the management of the employment insurance account.
That being said, we are concerned about unemployed Canadians who are having difficulty adjusting to the changes in the local labour markets.
The opposition's approach is to propose a pile of unsustainable EI bills: $3.7 million for one bill; $1.1 billion for another; $1.4 billion for yet another. There are 16 more EI bills to come, 9 of which are too complicated to cost, but it is fair to say that they will not be free. There is another $4.7 billion for the remaining seven bills. The cost of these bills would be astronomical and the opposition has supported them all without giving careful study to any of them.
Those bills represent more than $11 billion in new annual spending for the EI account, which would put this program into a deficit within a year and bankrupt this very vital national program.
Canadians are looking to this government to act responsibly and carefully. They want a government that will ensure that the long term viability of the EI system will be protected from this patchwork of proposals made by the opposition, and that is exactly what we are doing.
That is why we are providing financial transfers to the provinces for training through the existing labour market development agreements. The government provides approximately $2 billion per year to the provinces and territories for the EI part II programming to help train unemployed Canadians. Of this funding, almost $600 million goes directly to Quebec. In total, more than 600,000 Canadians are helped each year.
Budget 2007 provided an additional $500 million a year for labour market training, a commitment--