Human Resources committee  I would like to ask Ms. Nord the same thing. What would you say? Do you think Canadians would accept that if we were to take the extreme view and say we're going to give everybody a basic income? To me that's sound very communistic.

Human Resources committee  Where do I start? There are so many avenues. Ms. Nord, there's been talk this morning about a $15-per-hour wage, as one of the solutions to precarious employment. I know in Alberta it has had a devastating effect. A lot of businesses end up closing, particularly the food and beverage businesses.

Human Resources committee  Sorry, I meant a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

Human Resources committee  I know that in Alberta, they found that it made work more precarious, because suddenly restaurateurs could not.... In order to pay that $15 minimum wage, they cut a worker. They laid off one or two people. They were forced to do that. It had the reverse effect.

Human Resources committee  Ms. Regehr, the biggest solution in your mind would be to establish a guaranteed income for everybody. I hear your rationale for doing so, which is it gives people a chance to get back to school and gives them freedom and so forth. Ultimately, don't you believe that you'd have to sell Canadians on that?

Human Resources committee  That's excellent. I know we're not going to get to everybody. Ms. Moreau.

Human Resources committee  Good morning, and thanks to all for showing up. I'm from Sault Ste. Marie, so a special hello to Allyson. I guess the biggest take-away I get from this is trying to find a definition for “precarious employment”. I want to start with a bit of an example. I was in an Uber one day and I was talking to this fellow.

Human Resources committee  That's a good answer. I guess that's also what I'd like to know: What is the problem that we have to address per se? That's a good example. We are in precarious employment, but what is the problem we have to solve? Mr. Fong.

Human Resources committee  —how is any of this spending going to take place when—

Human Resources committee  The minister was talking about the 900,000 jobs, etc., and I'm simply pointing out from secondary sources that all is not that rosy. The question is, given the fact that money is fleeing from this country, especially in the oil patch, and there's no conceivable date as to when the next pipeline is going to be built, how are you going to pay for all of this?

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chair, on a point of order, that has nothing to do with this.

Human Resources committee  This is completely off topic, Mr. Chair.

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chair, I didn't open—

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Minister, I was just reading a report on Bloomberg. It was from the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It's the same organization that has concern about the SNC-Lavalin affair, so I think everybody knows it. They're calling for quite a severe....

Human Resources committee  There's another Bloomberg report that talks about home values, which fell in Canada for the first time since 1990, which is a huge blow. We heard from some home builders earlier. It's very grim news on that front. That same report talked about how business investment fell by 5.9% in the final three months of 2018 in Canada and is expected to be very weak, especially because of the energy sector.