Thank you all for coming. I'm sure this whole room belongs to your team, right.
I have a couple of comments. I'm going to echo my colleague's sentiments. What I'm noticing in my riding is that some people are starting to realize if they come to my office they might get a quicker route to what they need to get done, which is not good for my staff.
Another comment is that during the pre-budget consultation process that we had through the year, I held my own. I separated the groups into low income and seniors, middle class, and small business.
In the middle class I had a smart gentleman, an executive, whose family made probably in the neighbourhood of $140,000. He was quite irate because we're cutting taxes, we're cutting the disability tax credits, and about everything else that went on. He was upset about all of that.
Last week, back in the riding, he made another appointment. He came in, and he had done his numbers. Surprisingly he comes out about $2,500 ahead. He was ecstatic about that, and thumbs up. I think that's working.
I'm going to move my comments now to Mr. Siddall. Yesterday Minister Duclos spoke about increased investments in social and low-income housing. In my riding of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, we're currently facing an unfortunate increase in the number of homeless people in our community. This is an unfair reality for too many Canadians.
Could you please provide further information about the increases in investments to the homelessness partnering strategy, as well as how this money will be most effectively allocated and utilized to provide homeless Canadians with the support they need to escape poverty?