Federal election candidates debate jobs and the economy

The third and final installation of the Calgary Eyeopener candidatedebates tackled an issue on the mind of most Calgarians: the economy.

• Federal election candidates debate immigration in Calgary
• Federal election candidates in Calgary debate energy, environment
• Federal leaders trade pointed barbs during debate on economy

Squaring off for their respective parties were Calgary Centre candidatesJoan Crockatt with the Conservatives and Kent Hehr with the Liberals, and Calgary Shepard NDP candidate Dany Allard.

Here are some of the memorable moments from this morning's showdown.

Dany Allard, Calgary Shepard NDP candidate

• "We want to invest over $3 billion per year in jobs and infrastructure."
• "Also, investing in child care. Our plan to create one million child-care spaces over the next eight years will create 100,000 child-care-related jobs."
• "If cutting corporate taxes was to help create jobs, we would have seen job growth. The lowest unemployment rate was in 2007 when corporate taxes were around, what, 22, 21 per cent? We're now at 15 per cent and we have an additional 200,000 people unemployed today. The combined provincial-federal tax rate in Canada right now averages at about 26 per cent; the U.S. is at 39 per cent. We're significantly below and bringing it up from 15 to 17 per cent is still below the 10-year average that it's been at under the Conservatives."

Joan Crockatt, Calgary Centre Conservative candidate

• "StatsCan shows that, in the last two months, we've had job growth. We have a bright future. Don't get too down in the dumps folks, because we are on the right track. We just need to stay on it."
• "Remember that deficits are taxes on our kids."
• "Higher corporate taxes are not going to bring investors into our country. So we need business to be positive about our future and there's every reason to be positive with these job growth numbers we're starting to see."

Kent Hehr, Calgary Centre Liberal candidate

• "We are the only party who's going to make significant investments in the economy right now. We have said, on the record, that we're going to invest $10 billion a year over the first three years of our government into direct projects to help cities and other regions get things started."
• "We can borrow money at one per cent, get 25-per-cent reductions in labour costs, and get projects like the LRT and flood-mitigation projects up and running in this city."
• "We have lots of unemployment in the city and rising by the day, and having these projects on the go only makes good sense."