Jack Layton asked a question in question period Tuesday about the Canada Job Bank:

"Hon. Jack Layton, Leader of the NDP: Mr. Speaker, excuses don't cut it for the quarter of a million people that have been thrown out of work since the last election, and you know, when these unemployed workers turn to its government's job bank website to get a little bit of help and maybe a little bit of hope, what do they get? They log on and they're greeted by a message saying there are technical difficulties. Well, no kidding, Mr. Speaker. How can we have any confidence in a website about the slush fund when they can't even get their job bank website working?"

"Hon. Diane Finley : Well, Mr. Speaker, we're doing everything we can to ensure that all Canadians have access to all the labour market information, all the job information they can. Unfortunately, we have unprecedented numbers of people looking to the job bank. We're working to update that, make sure that it is robust enough to withstand the commands upon it — the demands upon it. We're working on that to serve Canadians, Mr. Speaker."

(From closed caption transcript.)

I decided to check out the website. I got a “we are experiencing technical difficulties” notice at first, but the jobs list appeared to be up-to-date. The technical difficulties notice was gone by later in the afternoon.

I called Human Resources Development this afternoon to ask them if they had been having trouble with the site.

Late Tuesday, they sent this reply:

"Job Bank experienced technical difficulties late last week. As soon as Service Canada staff identified the problem, efforts were immediately made to diagnose the cause and correct the problem quickly. Job Bank was fully functional as of today, Tuesday 13:00 hours Eastern Daylight Time.

All job postings on the Job Bank website are current. Service Canada is committed to ensuring that job posting information is timely and accurate to support Canadians in their search for employment particularly during this Economic Downturn."

Layton's question might have been a good one for the minister if it was still a real problem.

Heather Spiller