Yes, the Conservatives called it a jobs budget and when we look at the job numbers in it, there is more unemployment. My colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour is absolutely right: it should say it is a less jobs, less growth, less prosperity budget. I think we have a new title for the budget.
Let us look at some of the other indications, since they are not doing very well on growth at all. We need to look at what the Conservative government has done in terms of the change in real per capita GDP. This is just among OECD countries. We are 14th among OECD countries in growth. I certainly would not want to raise how we are doing worldwide, because it makes the government look so appallingly bad, at 130th in 2011 and 152nd in 2012.
Let us just take the OECD countries and look at the change in real per capita GDP. The Conservatives, as you recall, Madam Speaker, because I know you were first elected in that year, came to power in 2006. I congratulate the Speaker on being re-elected a couple of times. Since that time, up until 2011, how has Canada done in terms of the change in real per capita GDP, because that is the key consideration here?
We have had growth in population. However, as we have seen, the jobs have not kept pace with the growth in population. In fact, we have quarter of a million more Canadians now out on the streets after the recession, looking for work, knocking on doors in that endless, hopeless quest for jobs that simply are not there because the government has not invested to create them.
We also have a number of discouraged workers. In February, we had nearly 40,000 Canadians just give up. They have left the labour market. The Conservatives were happy about that because it resulted in a lower unemployment rate and does not make them look as bad, but the reality is that there are 38,000 Canadian families where the breadwinner simply gave up looking for work. Those jobs are not available because the Conservatives have been cutting them steadily, instead of putting in place the kind of real economic action that we actually need.
How has Canada done when we look at the change in real per capital GDP during the Conservative mandate compared to other countries? I will just test my colleagues. Do they think we were in the top three? No one thinks we were in the top three. The top five?