Mr. Chair, this follows the trend of this government with KAIROS, Rights and Democracy, the national council for the environment and the economy, and now the national round table on welfare—defunding evidence-based voices that from time to time present positions with which the government disagrees. The reality is that if you look at the budgets of these organizations and compare them with the amount of money the government spends on its propaganda machine in advertising, an unprecedented amount—in fact the government has spent over $500 million on government advertising—you'll see that the priority for the government is not to encourage and listen to evidence-based policy but to promote an ideological agenda.
Again, they're bound and determined to go in this direction. This is another example at a time when a lot of Canadians are struggling, at a time when there's been a real gap between have and have not people in Canada, and at a time when Canadians are struggling under record amounts of debt. Low-income Canadians are really struggling with the growth in the cost of living. The idea of disbanding and defunding the National Council of Welfare seems almost inconceivable for the government to do. We are strongly opposed to eliminating the National Council of Welfare, which did very good work, was non-partisan, and was independent in its analysis.