Voting for a government that will create Canadian jobs: Don Pittis

If the federal government's Economic Action Plan had lived up to its billing, Canadashould be swimming injobs right now.

In fact, Statistics Canada reported Friday morning the unemployment rate rose from 7 to 7.1 per cent in September on a modest gain of 12,000 jobs.Most of those jobs were part time, with74,000 new part-time positions created during the month,offset by a loss of62,000 full-time jobs.

As we study the last set of employmentnumbers before Canada's national election and the last bigeconomic indicator likely to stick in voters' minds it is intriguing to consider what it takes fora government to create goodjobs.

• Alberta business calendar: jobs, jobs, jobs
• Monsanto to cut 2,600 jobs as low crop prices cut into profits

In this election campaign every party has promised to create jobs, especially jobs for youth.Boring promises are not enough. What we need is vision.

The Harper strategy

Amajority governmentwithfriends inbusiness andhanded a balanced budget by LiberalPaul Martin, the Conservatives had as much power to manage the economy as is possible under Canadian democracy.

If their strategy had beenthe right one, we should be seeing the results right now. In other words, if the prime minister really can fulfil hispromise of creating 1.3 million net new jobs in the next five years despite the commodities crash, voters might ask why he didn't do a better job duringthe past five.

• Spin Cycle: Can 1.3 million new jobs be created in five years

That said, in a free-market economy it's not a simple matter to get entrepreneurs to start new ventures and spur private companies to hire more people.The only absolutelysure way for a governmentto create jobs in the short term is to go heavily into deficit and hire millions of government workers.

Governments are notoriously bad at micro-managing an economy.Using a strategy sometimes called "starve the beast," the Conservative methodology involves cutting back on government taxation and governmentspending as much as possible. Handing the money back to businesses and consumersis supposed to freethe private sector to make efficient choices, boosting jobs.

Handouts to individual companies and individual works projects (trumpeted on Economic Action Plan signs) are, by comparison, merelypublic relations. As a stimulus, tax cuts dwarf such contributions.

Whether the job-creationstrategies offered bythe other parties will work will only be tested if one of them wins.

• Elizabeth Maypromises to grow green jobs
• Spin Cycle: IsNDP proposed corporate tax hike a 'job killer'?
• Justin Trudeau promises $750M for skills training

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has promised to run a small deficit to increase infrastructure spending, creatingjobs at the same time as getting rid of bottlenecks in such things as roads,bridges and ports that impede the private sectoreconomy.The NDP has promised a slight rise incorporate taxes.

Neither strategy is likely radical enough to damage the economy, but that means it will have only a small impact on job creation.

In some ways, the most intriguinglong-term job creation plan may be the one offered by the national party least likely to be elected.Elizabeth May's Greens want to launch a radical green transformation of the Canadian economy, taking a leap into expanded public transport, rail and climate-friendly energy. She also advocates free college tuition.

Seeking vision

May's plan is long range and it isvisionary.Like the U.S. space program of the 1960sor the Portuguesekingswho in the 1400slaunched aplan to find a searoute to the spice islands, the one thinggovernments can do is inspire a whole nation.

It can be arguedHarper's greatest success was his own vision: Canada as a private sector-led energy superpower. For a while itworked. In retrospect, the private sector, not as wise as Harperhoped,over-invested the entire economy into the singleblack hole of falling commodity prices.

• Canada's research dilemma is that companies don't do it here

Canada has the potential to be the northern Europe of North America. We have resources and educated brains waiting to be turned into jobs, and creating those long-term jobs is going to mean balancing government spending with real governing vision.

Whoever leads us next must invest in infrastructure and education.They must open doors to robotics, revolutionary medicine and risk. They must force us to diversify and process at home.They must invest in research in a way that contributes to Canadian jobs, not jobs in the home countries of foreign corporate owners.

But job creation is not a short-term endeavour. Job creation cannot be separated from long-term economic success. In a world filled with competitors, plodding is not good enough.

As the late Steve Jobs said,"Let's go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday."

Whichever party wins the election in 10 days, it needsto think like avisionary if it wantsto create jobs.

Follow Don on Twitter @don_pittis

More analysisby Don Pittis