Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche.
I am very pleased to rise in the House today to take part in a debate on a topic that has been discussed at great length in the House over the past few months and that our Conservative colleagues would like to revive. It has been the subject of much debate and has generated dozens of questions from the opposition, questions that the Prime Minister has answered very openly, transparently, and honestly.
The Prime Minister never dodges the issue. He is at the media's disposal and answers all of their questions. He also answers questions from Canadians by holding town halls, as he has been doing over the past few months all over Canada. This is important because he gets to find out what is going on and hear people's concerns. I think our colleagues across the aisle should take inspiration from the kind of meetings the Prime Minister holds. That way, they would come to understand the concerns of Canadians.
The questions primarily touch on families and youth. Canadians want our government to focus on economic development, help our families cope in challenging times, and help our business owners grow their business. That is certainly what we are doing with the latest budget measures. Canadians are especially proud because the Canadian economy is doing well, thanks to our most recent budget and the other two budgets that have been tabled in the past few years. This budget helped created 600,000 jobs across Canada, because business owners and Canadians have confidence in the economy and are investing in their businesses. Workers are taking the jobs they are being offered, which is sending the unemployment rate plummeting. The latest figures show that unemployment in Canada is around 5.9%, the lowest level since 1976. We are very proud of this amazing achievement.
Unfortunately, the Conservatives want to divert the debate and focus on other questions that the Prime Minister has already answered honestly. We respect government institutions and the commissioners who are appointed to do their job. Again, the Prime Minister co-operated with the Ethics Commissioner and answered her questions. Immediately after the report was tabled, since that is what is at issue in the House today, the Prime Minister stated clearly in the House and in front of the media that he would take responsibility. He accepted the findings of the report and committed to submitting his future plans for personal or family vacations to the commissioner.
For months, the opposition asked dozens of questions in the House and we are here again today debating this issue. Now that the report has been tabled, the opposition is refusing to accept the findings. We, on the other hand, want to thank the commissioner for her excellent work and, again, we accept her findings and, like the Prime Minister, we are following all her recommendations.
As I was saying earlier, our colleagues across the way want to divert the debate in order to talk about things that are of interest to them, but not necessarily to Canadians.
We spent the past two weeks in our respective ridings answering our constituents' questions. I can assure the House that in my magnificent riding of Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, the economy and jobs are still top of mind. We are living in a time when the economy is doing so well that there is a labour shortage. That is what I am hearing from the entrepreneurs that I talk to. How can we support them even more? Of course, implementing the measures in the budget will benefit them especially.
Here are some examples. Our government has invested some $90 million in the riding in the past 28 months, that is since I was and we were elected in 2015. That level of investment had not been seen for many years. I am very proud of the investments made in various areas. Consider, for example, the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, an ocean research centre in my riding. It is a wonderful institute that falls under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Its dedicated staff of public servants is hard at work studying what is going on in the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We have invested $27 million to ensure that the institute has the infrastructure needed to carry out its research. Those investments will also help the institute hire several researchers.
Those are some of the important investments being made in my region. People were particularly proud when we announced them because research centres, including that one, did not receive any support from the previous government for 10 years. We have chosen to invest in research in order to have sound evidence.
We also invested several million dollars to upgrade the wharves in my riding. In fact, I recently announced funding for the Carleton-sur-Mer wharf, a wonderful piece of infrastructure that had unfortunately been deprived of investments for the 10 previous years.