Mr. Speaker, the opportunities for folks in Toronto in terms of the labour market are as I described in my speech. When we talk about part-time and contract work, we are generally speaking about low wage work in the service industry. The fact that people have to cobble a number of low wage jobs together becomes very difficult in a city like Toronto where the government just turned down a very sensible, practical and economically viable motion by my colleague for Trinity—Spadina for a national public transit strategy. To get from one side of the city to the other in Toronto these days takes an extraordinarily long time.
To have to cobble together low wage part-time jobs in the city of Toronto is an enormous problem, especially for people trying to raise families in what is the most expensive city to live in Canada. In Toronto from 2000 to 2005, prior to the recession, we saw a 42% increase in the working poor. I am talking about the working poor. Those are the kinds of jobs that are now available to people in Toronto. There is a hollowing out of the middle-class in Toronto and that is the job market reality for people in Toronto.
This is not about hunting, fishing or logging. This is about people working in minimum wage jobs in a big, expensive city and trying to raise families. It is impossible.