Thank you very much for having me here today and for your being here today.
It's been very interesting listening to all the testimony we've had. The thing that stands out to me is that every budget since 2015 has specifically been focused on benefiting people in this country, whether it's through the Canada child benefit—my community of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge gets on average about $5.5 million per month being applied to about 18,000 children—or the national housing strategy, which I really like because it's over a 10-year period and it brings certainty to developers and projects and non-profits who can actually access those and who plan to access those.
When we look at everything we've been doing, what I like about this budget, and maybe you can expand on it.... In my riding we have a food bank called Friends in Need Food Bank. I've volunteered there a few times. When I go there, it's heartbreaking to see young families standing in line to try to feed their kids. It's a challenge, and they raise a lot of money on their own. They do a lot of volunteer work to make sure the programs work for them. Then we hear about many young people across our country who are in the position that their kids go to school hungry. In fact we heard recently about the Ontario government dialling back on school breakfast programs. I struggle with this, because if we want our kids to succeed, we need to be able to take care of them.
Moving forward, are the initiatives in budget 2019, such as the national school food program and the local food infrastructure fund, going to help support students and food banks in communities such as my own of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge?