Mr. Speaker, I was profoundly disappointed this week to see that the Liberals' budget contains absolutely no jobs plan. The situation right now is very dire as it relates to unemployment, particularly unemployment for youth. As members know by now, as I have said it many times, we are in a situation where youth unemployment is at 14.7%, approaching 15%. Close to half a million young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed. We have the worst employment numbers in over 25 years, yet budget 2025 has absolutely no jobs plan.
The Conservatives put forward constructive proposals in the lead-up to the release of the budget as part of the Conservative youth jobs plan. We proposed measures to unleash the economy, to fix immigration, to fix training and to build homes where the jobs are. Instead, what we see from this budget is more of the same bad Liberal policies that got into this mess in the first place. We see a budget deficit of over $78 billion; the continuation of policies that constrain the growth of our economy, deter investment, fail to unleash our economy and make it harder for our economy to move forward; a doubling down on failure in many areas; and a failure to implement the proposals we put forward, which would have created jobs and opportunities.
The best the Liberals could do is announce the continuing existence of programs that have been in place since the 1990s. What we hear when discussing unemployment is government members say they have this strategy and that program. Those programs have been in place since the 1990s, and the Liberals have no new ideas. They are clearly not delivering the goods.
What matters when it comes to unemployment is the result, not the good intention of politicians and not the existence of programs or the expenditure on those programs. What matters is whether young people are working. Tragically, the situation right now, as a result of 10 years of bad Liberal policies, is that we have the worst employment numbers in over 25 years.
I will note that frequently the Liberals' response is that they have the Canada summer jobs program, a program that has existed since the 1990s. The Canada summer jobs program provides jobs, on average, for eight weeks. When we have a crisis of almost half a million young people who are unemployed and we say we are going to subsidize a few more eight-week jobs, that is clearly not a solution that meets the moment, that meets the magnitude of the crisis.
The Conservatives have mapped out a clear plan to get us there. We put forward the Conservative youth jobs plan in hopes that the Liberals would include parts of it in their budget, that they would borrow our good ideas around unleashing the economy, fixing immigration, fixing training and building homes where the jobs are. However, the Liberals chose not to implement those ideas and not to come up with any new ideas of their own. Instead, they put forward a budget with no youth jobs plan. It simply identifies the continuing existence of a few programs that have been in place since the 1990s.
Why did the Liberals not take this opportunity to use our good ideas to confront youth unemployment and put them in the budget?