Over the summer break, I had the opportunity to meet with a great number of constituents and the one constant I kept hearing was the need to keep moving forward with job creation and economic growth.
On Sept. 30th Statistics Canada announced that Canada’s economy grew (+0.6%) in July, including strong growth in the manufacturing sector (+1.1%). This was slightly better than economists’ expectations of a +0.5% gain.
Our government is focused on what matters most to Albertans and Canadians, job creation and economic growth. The July economic growth numbers are one more positive sign that our government is on the right track. What’s more, Canada has now created over one million net new jobs since the height of the global recession in July 2009 (almost 90% full-time and over 80% private sector) — the best job growth record among all G-7 countries.
We still need to be mindful and diligent with our policy; Canada is not immune to ongoing global economic challenges being faced by other nations particularly in Europe and the United States.
Rest assured our government is working hard to grow the Canadian economy through positive measures like tax breaks to help small business create more jobs, the Canada Job Grant to help get more Canadians trained and into skilled jobs, the largest ever federal investment in job-creating infrastructure, new tax relief to help our manufacturing sector grow and freezing the EI change to contributions.
While our government is taking measures to create jobs and economic stability, the opposition parties are more concerned about job killing carbon taxes and the legalization of marijuana. Our government has heard what is important to Canadians and to Albertans; we will continue to work towards achieving those priorities.