Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see the finance minister back. We have not heard him talk about the economy in the House for almost six weeks now.
I am not sure that he actually read the same report as New Democrats did, and I will quote from the report to help him out. It states:
...the number of low-paying [full-time] jobs has risen faster than the number of mid-paying jobs, which in turn, has risen faster than the number of high-paying jobs.
It further states:
The damage caused to full-time employment during each recession was, in many ways, permanent.
We have seen a 0.7% job-growth rate in Canada during 2014, which was supposed to be a good year. We have seen youth unemployment at twice the national average and 200,000 more Canadians out of work than before the recession, and all Conservatives want to do is pull a muscle patting themselves on the back for a job well done. We know that the Canadian economy needs some help. The government's answer to falling oil prices was to delay the budget by a few months, just hoping things would get better. There is no plan B coming from the government, other than more tax breaks for the wealthiest Canadians.
My simple question is this. The CIBC report shows that job quality in Canada is at its lowest level in a generation. Let me repeat that. The quality of jobs in Canada is at its lowest level in a generation. Does that not preoccupy him at all, the fact that we are moving from full-time, well-paying jobs to more precarious part-time work in this country, as was evidenced in last month's report by his own department? Is he not at all concerned with that, and would he just get on with the work of presenting a budget that would actually meet the needs of the Canadian economy?