March 13, 2009 – Earlier in the week, Stephen Harper tried to paint a rosy picture for Canada saying it was the last major economy to enter the recession and will be the first out of it. However, job loss figures released by Statistics Canada on Friday paint a different picture.

While the number of part time jobs rose slightly last month, there were more than 111,000 full-time jobs lost and unemployment rose to 7.7 percent, up from 7.2 percent the previous month.  Since October, 295,000 jobs have been lost, most of them full-time, yet the latest data available also show that the EI program was only able to help 45% of unemployed workers in December.  Canada is now losing jobs at twice the rate as the United States.

"Canadians are increasingly losing their confidence in Stephen Harper and his ability to govern,” says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley.

“In September the Prime Minister predicted if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by then. This week he told Canadians the economic recovery would be swift, yet there are more than 1.4 million Canadian men and women who want to work but can’t find jobs.”

“If he knew better in September, and now is downplaying bad economic news then he is deliberately misleading Canadians. If Stephen Harper can’t see the full economic crisis and how it affects working families, then he truly is out of touch with reality.”