MIRAMICHI, N.B. - Despite staggering job losses in January that suggest the recession may be deeper than previously thought, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday he won't change course in the face of the worsening economic news.
Canada lost 129,000 jobs in January, pushing the unemployment rate to a surprising 7.2 per cent, from 6.6 per cent in December, the highest it has been since November 2004.
Harper acknowledged the bad news on Friday, but he said the government is sticking to its plan announced in last month's federal budget with its $19 billion in stimulus spending and tax cuts for this year.
"We will not be blown off track every time there is some bad news," Harper told reporters after highlighting his government's infrastructure spending on facilities like the hockey arena he visited in Miramichi, N.B.
"We cannot have in Parliament, quite frankly, instability every week and every month, every time there's a new number, people demanding a different plan. This is a massive stimulus plan."
The unemployment figures released Friday by Statistics Canada are unparalleled. The country hasn't seen a monthly job drop like those in January since the federal agency began compiling the data this way in the 1970s.
The job losses were widespread, and no region of the country was left untouched. Manufacturing was particularly hard hit, mostly because of the severe downturn in the United States, which recorded 598,000 jobs lost in January.
Economist Derek Burleton of the TD Bank predicted earlier this week that 325,000 jobs will be lost in 2009, but the latest statistics even took him by surprise.
"Normally when you get that kind of surprise you immediately look beneath the print for some encouraging details, but there weren't any," he said.
In Ottawa, the Liberals led off question period with an attack on the Conservative economic record as the employment figures dominated the 45-minute session.
Noting that January's job losses were three times worse than economists predicted, Liberal finance critic John McCallum reminded the House that "the prime minister assured us mere months ago that if Canada were facing a recession we would already have had it."
"Will the government admit that it not only did not see this coming but it has absolutely no idea where it is going?" he asked.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty warned Canadians to brace for a "difficult year" and asked the opposition parties to support the government's stimulus plans in the House of Commons.
"I think there has been general acceptance of the measures in the economic action plan from Jan. 27, but we have to get it done," he said in Toronto. "It is one thing to announce it, we have to implement it, otherwise it is of no use to Canadians."
The Bloc Quebecois and New Democrats also piled on the government in the Commons, where beefing up the employment insurance program was a common theme.
"Canadians are not looking for who to blame," said New Democrat MP Libby Davies. "They just want to know that they will get the help they need to weather this economic storm.
"Will the government finally acknowledge the urgent need to eliminate the two-week waiting period and increase accessibility to EI right now for those in need?"
Government ministers responded by noting prolonged benefits, work-sharing and job-training provisions are included in the budget.
Outside the House, McCallum wouldn't say whether the Liberals think the government stimulus package should be bigger, but he did say it should have a different emphasis.
He pushed the government to change the employment insurance eligibility rules "to help the vulnerable and to give money to people who will spend that money."
McCallum also wants part of the government's infrastructure funding to go directly to municipalities "to ensure that it is spent rather than sitting under a mattress in Ottawa in this Build Canada Fund, which doesn't seem to get the money out."
Asked in Miramichi about the latest unemployment figures, Harper conceded the job losses were "significant" but said his government will respond appropriately, calling the Jan. 27 budget probably the most important in the country's history.
Later, in an interview with CTV broadcast in the Maritimes, Harper said economic forecasters have been unable to call the recession accurately, but Canada is still in a better position than most countries to deal with the global downturn.
"We're in a period where, the truth is, people just don't know exactly what's happening," he said.
"We know two things. We know it's going to be difficult, it's going to be more difficult in the months to come, but we also know so far, and this is the one thing I think to take some solace from, is that Canada remains in a relatively good position compared to all these other countries."
Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said the January unemployment figures are "stunning."
"It's an economic tsunami for Canadian workers, and there's more to come."
-- With Bruce Cheadle in Ottawa
