Mr. Speaker, last week the government quietly tabled a report, and it was interesting where it stated that the government reduced the number of employees from 278,092 to 262,902 from March 31 to December 31 of last year. Of the more than 15,000 jobs that were eliminated, 8,000 were full-time indeterminate positions, a reduction of about 3%. The remaining roughly 7,000 positions that were eliminated were for students and casual, or term, employees, the report indicated. The document, an annual report by the Prime Minister on the public service, shows students and casual employees, often women and younger members of the workforce, took the biggest hit.
My question for the member is in regard to providing services to Canadians; that on the one hand, the government puts a high priority on this sort of targeting, and then on the other hand, the Prime Minister feels it is necessary to increase the number of politicians in the House of Commons—