You would get rid of that?
My question was on the universal child care benefit. I spent the last five years of my life working in the field with so-called underprivileged families with three, four or five children. I even spent the day yesterday with them in order to find out if this amount of $100 was helpful and pulled them out of poverty.
First of all, these people continue to bear children. Next, the money is used for housing. Housing is still more or less affordable. Therefore, this income allows them to pay for housing that is still much too expensive for that family. It is also used to cover other costs. These mothers are not in the labour force and their spouses work at low wages, so that theses families are not much better off. They could even be prone to take on debt, since that small additional income can lead them to buy some stuff.
If we want to assist parents, we have to do it with some other measures, for example a housing program. You said it is difficult to imagine a national housing strategy. Why? We should also improve employment insurance and provide access to education through community organizations that work in the field with those families, while providing also child care for those children.
We must look at the benefit within the framework of a global strategy that includes a national housing strategy. Yesterday, at the UN, Canada was again fingered out in the discussion on housing because we are the only country to not have a national housing strategy. Why?