Doug Ford and François Legault both came to power in 2018. In terms of job creation under both governments, the Legault government compares poorly to the Ford government.
But before I go into more detail about the clear “Ontarian dominance”, allow me to return to my column last Saturday “Not so brilliant, the employment record of François Legault”, where I made a comparison with the employment record of the previous Liberal government, Philippe Couillard .
The great gunners, including Eric Girard and Pierre Fitzgibbon, did not appreciate my comparison. I remind you of the main points.
128,400 jobs were created under the Legault administration, or 16.3% of the jobs created in Canada from November 2018 to date. This is small compared to the 240,800 jobs created under the former Couillard administration, or 23.8% of job creation in Canada.
Business Secretary Pierre Fitzgibbon took the opportunity to belittle Couillard’s strong employment record during his 2014-18 tenure.
“In 2014 the unemployment rate was high, it was easier and more relevant to create jobs. As of 2018, our economy has grown faster than Ontario. Comparing 2014 and 2018 employment is a shortcut. Productivity is the contemporary way to create wealth,” Minister Fitzgibbon wrote in the tweet he sent in response to my column.
For his part, Treasury Secretary Eric Girard responded to my column by tweeting: “Quebec has historically lagged behind in economic growth due to low productivity. The data is clear. Our government has reduced the GDP per capita gap with Ontario from 16.4% to 13.4%. We also have full employment with an unemployment rate of 4.5%. »
You’ll find that the two strongmen of François Legault’s outgoing government like to compare Quebec’s economic performance to Ontario’s.
The same goes for their leader. Last Friday, the day Statistics Canada released its employment data, François Legault tweeted what made Quebec’s job market look good: “August 2022 Unemployment Rate: Quebec 4.5%; Canada 5.4%; Ontario 5.7%”.
The numbers don’t lie
In the period from November 2018 to present, around 447,000 jobs have been created under the Doug Ford administration. This represents 56.9% of all jobs created in Canada during this period. This is 17.5 percentage points more than Ontario’s labor force weight in Canada.
During this time, almost 128,400 jobs were created under the Legault government. That’s just 16.3% of all jobs created in the country over the past four years, or 6 percentage points less than the weight of Quebec’s labor force in the country.
If Ontario currently has a higher unemployment rate than Quebec, it’s because Ontario’s labor force has grown much more than Quebec’s.
From November 2018 to date, Ontario’s labor force has increased by 472,200 compared to just 92,700 here in Quebec. Ontario’s increase accounts for 62.4% of Canada’s labor force increase, compared to just 12.2% in Quebec.
In terms of full-time employment, Ontario saw an increase of 420,400 jobs, or even 4.4 times more than Quebec’s 94,900 more jobs.
