Mr. Speaker, despite what was happening in other parts of the world and despite what was happening south of the border, we were able, through our economic action plan and the steps we took, to recoup the jobs that were lost because of the economic uncertainty. In fact, over 600,000 net new jobs have been created since 2009 and many of them are full-time, meaningful jobs.
We invested billions of dollars with respect to skills upgrading and training during that difficult time so people were well positioned, not only to return to jobs but to return to better jobs to ensure they could earn a decent wage and support their families.