Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, we are very much focused on this subject. We introduced the working income tax benefit in 2007 to help ensure that more low income families are financially better off as a result of getting a job.
In budget 2009, the tax benefit was enhanced by $580 million, effectively doubling the initial investment to provide further support to working families and to other Canadians.
In 2011, approximately 1.5 million working Canadian families are expected to benefit from the working income tax benefit.
We also extended work sharing agreements to keep Canadians working by up to 26 weeks to a maximum of 78 weeks.
We are seeing the results of these investments. In the first eight months of 2011, employment increased by 194,400. This is good news for Canadians and Canadian families.
Under budget 2011, we provided additional funding to make available an extension of up to 16 weeks for active or recently terminated work sharing agreements to be phased out by October 2011.
The family is the building block of our society. Our priority--