Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for her speech. She talked about increasing productivity and our ability to take advantage of lower energy costs, and the Bank of Canada report reflects that too. It is very clear to me that businesses do not have enough confidence to hire people for the long term in order to benefit from improved export conditions.
The Bank of Canada stated very clearly that long-term unemployment is still near its post-crisis peak. It has been five years; that is a long time. That hints at how business people are feeling and the fact that they are not ready to invest in human capital or in upgrading their equipment to take advantage of the economic recovery. Very clearly, that is because of the decisions made by this government, which put all of its eggs in the oil basket instead of supporting diversity in our economy as a way of preparing for the kind of transition we are seeing now. I would like my colleague to talk about this long-term unemployment problem and the fact that people are being shut out of economic opportunities.