It's a fair comment.
There are organizations, certainly in my riding, such as the John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fry, that are also there, that also have programs and apply for funding. It's not to say there couldn't be some hybrid, if you will, where the government eliminated, for the sake of argument, the $631, but other organizations, like John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, would also be there to help. It's not to say that couldn't happen also.
I would go back again and say to you that we can't be fixated always on the cost of doing something. What's this going to cost? There's a cost of not doing it. Sometimes I worry that good things don't get done just because of the cost. I would argue there's a cost of not doing things. My background is obviously not politics but sports and hockey. I can give you a hundred examples of things that you could always have argued. It would have cost too much to redo my dressing room, but there was a cost of not doing my dressing room, too.
I respect the fact that we need to be smart with our money. I respect the fact that costs should be looked at. I strongly argue here, and hopefully the committee can bring this out, that there's a cost of not doing it. I feel we have an obligation to those most vulnerable. This is a tax, to me, on our most vulnerable citizens.
I'm encouraged by the tone and from what I'm hearing. Obviously there are differences of opinion. There's always going to be differences of opinion. However, I really believe there's an opportunity for us to work together in a non-partisan way to do the right thing and to correct something that to me was wrongly done.