Mr. Speaker, I will bring up some facts and figures. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that the overall impact of budget 2012, fiscal update 2012, and budget 2013 would be a loss of 67,000 jobs by 2017 and a 0.7% reduction in GDP.
Also Statistics Canada states that there are 6.5 unemployed people for every job vacancy in the country. It has also reported that we have had four consecutive years without significant change in the after-tax incomes of Canadians. Really, it demonstrates that Canadians are holding fast or having troubles getting ahead.
The member spoke greatly about the building Canada fund. The Minister of Finance came to Scarborough a few weeks ago to announce a big pile of money. When other mayors asked how they could access the program, the answer was that the criteria was not there, the Conservatives do not know yet. How in fact can they decide what programs do qualify when they have not even made the criteria yet?