Ms Joyce Bateman, MP:

I thank the Vice Chairman and members for welcoming us. It is good to see Deputies Bernard J. Durkan and Joe O'Reilly again. We are meeting Deputies Seán Crowe and Paschal Donohoe for the first time. We are delighted to be here and to learn from the Irish experience and to share with you. I am a Member of Parliament on the Government benches and our framework is clearly a focus on job creation, economic growth and most important of all for those of us with children - I am a mother of a 21 year old and a 14 year old - long-term prosperity. Long-term prosperity is not just prosperity for our generation but prosperity for the generations to come. That is the reason we are trying very hard to get back to balance by 2014, that is the reason for our policies. We recognise that we are in a very fortunate position and that the austerity measures we are taking are very moderate relative to the ones that the Irish people are taking. We are taking these measures and not resting on our laurels. We do not want to have a situation where our young people are faced with challenges or for that matter, after the Taoiseach's visit on the weekend, Irish young people do not have opportunities. To that end, our Minister of Finance, Mr. Jim Flaherty, MP, has taken measures that were seen by some as draconian to reduce terms of mortgages by increasing mortgage down-payment requirements. Again, that is not about the comfort zone today but the comfort zone over the next 30 years.

I echo the comments of all of my colleagues on welcoming people to Canada. We are a very welcoming country. I come from western Canada, where there are many jobs but not just in the oil fields. It is very critical that we send out the message that there are jobs in peripheral services. We are building communities and we do not have enough people in western Canada to fill all the jobs we have on offer. While the oil sands jobs is a very important driver, there are other opportunities.
We cannot be more friendly than creating a safe future for children and young adults to enter into economic prosperity.