Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this morning to speak again on this important issue.
Since the issue of job creation by the government has been raised, I would like to provide, based upon Statistics Canada real data being used, the fact that in the last three years of this government, part-time employment has increased by approximately 50% across the country. In fact, 20% of all jobs are now part-time employment.
That is a record accomplishment for the government. It is actually an erosion of many of the benefits that workers accrue through full-time employment. That is why we have people working piecemeal at jobs. That is why it is very germane to this issue with Canada Post to ensure that there is going to be fairness with regard to what is happening.
Let us be clear again: this is a lockout. The minister can pick up the phone and stop the lockout right away. The workers are prepared to go back. They are prepared to deliver the mail. They can do so within a matter of hours, but they are being prevented from doing so. That is the reality right now. The workers are prepared and willing to be back at work, but they cannot do so physically because of the actions of the government and Canada Post.
That needs to be emphasized continually, because those men and women have been providing a public service of good choice for Canadians for many years. When we look at the facts of Canada Post, if we look at the profit it brings in and the benefits Canadians receive, we cannot argue with the facts.
I want to paint two different worlds here. The first world would be Canada Post. When we look at the facts, we see that it has actually had profits for the last 16 years and has contributed $1.2 billion to the federal government in dividends and income tax over the last 15 years. It also had dividends of $580 million. It has had income tax of around $654 million and profits of $1.7 billion. All of that is being rolled back into the public purse for different programs and services.
I might add that when we consider this accomplishment, we need to do it through the lens of looking at the accomplishments of other countries. Other countries have higher postage rates than we do through Canada Post. We enjoy good service, low costs and the economic benefit that goes back into whatever the government may want to do at that time, such as providing health care, but I am going to show what the government is doing with some of those profits that Canadian constituents have paid into Canada Post.
The government has made other choices, such as corporate tax cuts for the oil and gas industry. I am going to roll out a couple of those examples, because I think it is important for people to understand that Canada Post workers cannot go to work right now to bring back that profit for Canadians and their families. Also, they cannot do so in an environment that is healthy when we have a government that has basically said it supports the issue with regard to making sure our young people are discriminated against by having a lower wage for the same work, and a government that is going to actually discriminate against our youth with regard to pensions by reducing those pensions. Those are the goals that the government has set by making sure that it uses a sledgehammer on this particular issue.
Those profits that those workers have been rolling back into the coffers are very important. That is an important fact about the treasury, and we make choices about the treasury. What has been happening in the oil and gas sector in particular is very interesting, especially if we come from Ontario or Quebec, where the manufacturing sector has been hammered over the last number of years. A lot of those full-time jobs with benefits and pensions basically have been decimated to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That value-added work is important for our youth when they look at later paying off a college or university education. Now they have to scramble three or four jobs together just to get by. We have lost that value-added work. Where has the money gone? Incredibly, the money has gone to the oil and gas sector to the tune of billions of dollars in terms of subsidies.
Yes, this is what the government has been doing. It is borrowing money right now. As we are in a deficit, it has borrowed money for the HST implementation. Around $6 billion has been borrowed. When we pay that off, if we actually get back into a surplus, it will cost billions more in interest just to pay off that servicing debt. We are borrowing money for large corporate tax cuts right now for profitable industries and we are actually paying interest on those corporate tax cuts until we get into a surplus.
I know that my colleagues are getting upset about my talking about this--