Mr. Chair, with respect to the big oil companies, I am sure the member noticed that we took away their accelerated capital cost allowance which is actually a tax hike for big oil companies. We transferred that benefit to manufacturers in Canada which I described in my previous response.
If we were to listen to some of the members in this House, we would think they were not aware that there were more than 19,000 net new jobs in this country last month. This is despite the slowness in the United States economy. Since this government took office, employment has increased by 832,000 people. Full time jobs account for over 80% of the increase. This is dramatic success after two years and three months or so of Conservative government. Despite the slowdown in the economy in the United States and globally, our economic fundamentals are strong.
There are some single industry communities in particular which need help and that is why the Prime Minister announced the community development trust, $1 billion to particularly help those communities like Dalhousie, New Brunswick where the mill closed and other parts of the country where specific industries have shut down. So there is that specific assistance for those workers and those communities.
As the Bloc has advocated in this place, and the hon. member who preceded the current finance critic for the Bloc talked to me a couple of years ago, we needed to do something for older workers, which we did. The older workers assistance program for workers between the age of 55--