Yes, most people who pay taxes are middle class, mainly in the cities. We really must support these cities where it's said that housing is unlivable. No one seems to stop at anything that's catastrophic here in Quebec City. Half the city should be rebuilt. In 1957, the Laplante Report stated that the “hovels should be regilded.”
Millions of dollars were allocated to Old Quebec, but a lot of parishes now have uninhabitable housing. Are we going to destroy them or are we really going to help renovate these houses? That's the question we have to ask ourselves. Are we going to reduce the people of the middle class to a state of homelessness? That's the problem now.
Rather than start from the bottom with homeless people, we should start at the top and tell those people who are able to do something, who have initiative, who show dedication and who are cultivated, to do their duty. You elected members should pay attention to that.
Our cities have now gotten to such a point—especially Quebec City—that half of each of them should be demolished. Are you going to demolish half of Quebec City? In 1957, the Laplante Report stated that 14 areas of Quebec City were really dealing with hovels. No one is talking about renovations. No one is talking about giving people a chance to be free, or to be constantly supervised by intervening parties. It is really time to do something.
In 1974, together with the Liberal and a Conservative, I visited the University of Moscow and a large part of Russia during the Brezhnev era. It had already gotten to the point where the dwellings we visited were hovels. But socialism creates hovels and poverty.
Today, we must start at the top—not at the level of the homeless—to really create something.