Mr. Speaker, I should first acknowledge that I regret using the proper name of our leader. It is just that he is such a great leader, I guess I got over-enthusiastic and got carried away. I thank my colleague for correcting that.
Let me address the question of the member opposite. Perhaps she misunderstood the point of my speech, which was that Canada has historically been a land of opportunity. People come to Canada, as my grandparents and parents did, from all over the world, because they believe that Canada is a land of opportunity where one can, through hard work, through study, and through effort, move up economically in the world. Sadly, as a result of the actions of her government, people are less and less able to make that move.
Let me just give her a couple of facts, because maybe she has been unaware of them. There are nearly 1.3 million Canadians today who are unemployed. Another 4,300 lost their jobs in December. Employment growth in 2014 was a mere 1%, which is almost nothing. Clearly, our economy is stalling, and employment growth is not even keeping up with our population growth.
Clearly, a lot of Canadians are struggling right now. We do not think that should be the case. We believe that Canadians ought to have opportunities and jobs and the ability to move into the middle class. We do not know what she would have against that.