Last week Statistics Canada reported that Manitoba job growth numbers are embarrassing when compared to all other provinces in Western Canada. Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia all had job growth numbers well above the national average. Over the last year, the numbers of jobs created in Canada increased by 2.4% over the previous year. The number of jobs in Manitoba only increased by less than 1% over the previous year. Saskatchewan created more than 6 times more jobs than Manitoba did. The number of new jobs in Saskatchewan increased by 4.6% over the previous year. We simply cannot continue on the economic path we are on. More than 40,000 young Manitobans left our province since 1999, when the NDP took office, in search of long term, meaningful, well paying jobs elsewhere.

This government has no fresh ideas to turn our economy around. While it is busy spending millions of taxpayer dollars on pre-election advertising, Manitoba has the only economy in Canada which has not grown at a rate above the national average for each of the last 7 years. We cannot continue to allow our future – our children and our grandchildren – to keep moving away in search of jobs. It’s time to make meaningful tax cuts, to address the labour shortage and to work to provide opportunities for young people right here in Manitoba.