Mr. Speaker, our Conservative government is squarely focused on what matters most to Canadians: helping to create jobs and economic growth and securing Canada's long-term prosperity.

With the help of Canada's economic action plan, Canada's economy has seen the best economic performance among all G7 countries in recent years, both during the global recession and throughout the recovery.

Here are the facts to prove it.

Over one million net new jobs have been created in Canada since the end of the recession in July 2009. Over this period, Canada has had the strongest job growth record in the entire G7 by far. Furthermore, Canadians have also enjoyed the strongest income growth in the G7. Canada is the only G7 country to have more than fully recovered business investment lost during the recession.

A key component of Canada's strong economic performance has been our government's stable and predictable investments in communities across the country. Our government understands that investment in public infrastructure creates jobs, promotes economic growth, and provides a high quality of life for families in every city and community across the country. In recognition of the importance of efficient public infrastructure for Canada's economic prosperity and quality of life, our government has made significant investments since 2006 to build roads, bridges, subways, rail, and much more. Indeed, under the $33 billion building Canada plan launched in 2007, we supported over 12,000 infrastructure projects across Canada.

Furthermore, economic action plan 2013 builds on our government's historic infrastructure investments with $70 billion for public infrastructure over the next decade, including the $53 billion new building Canada plan for provincial, territorial, and municipal infrastructure. This is the largest and longest federal investment in job-creating infrastructure in Canada's history.

In fact, just recently the Prime Minister and the Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs announced important details on the new building Canada plan. The new plan will provide municipalities, provinces, and territories with the information they need to plan public infrastructure projects in their own jurisdictions. The new plan supports projects that focus on economic growth, job creation, and productivity, including highways, roads, bridges, subways, commuter rail, and public infrastructure to ensure the prosperity of all Canadians.

While the opposition is determined to ignore these issues, they are the issues that Canadians care most about, and our government will stay focused on their priorities by providing a strong economy, lower taxes, and safe communities. Indeed, that is exactly what we have done in economic action plan 2014.

I will conclude by noting that regrettably, the member and his colleagues opposite recently voted against these measures and against communities across Canada.

Peter Braid

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Adjournment Proceedings

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