Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sure that if, as committee members, we're frustrated, you must be even more frustrated. I don't know whether the presenters sat through the previous presentations, but my calculation is that of the 13 groups that presented this morning, 11 made very strenuous, well-documented cases and arguments for greater investment in the whole range of public provisions: public services, public pensions, public community services, health services, infrastructure, and our built heritage. And two voices have pleaded for bigger tax cuts.
The spokesperson for the North End Community Health Centre, it seems to me, summed it up quite well when pleading for a national anti-poverty strategy. I asked how we should go about this, and he said, please, no more studies, because the government knows what to do, but they keep choosing to do the opposite.
My concern is how we can move forward with what clearly is a near consensus on having people investment that is being placed before the finance committee, while the finance committee members on the government side keep hearing only one voice, which is asking for deeper and faster tax cuts.
I guess my question, to anyone who might want to dive in on it, is whether you see the way to help build consensus around the need for public investment of our massive surplus dollars and whether you can suggest some strategies for how those overwhelmingly increased numbers of voices can pull together to make that happen.