Madam Speaker, I apologize to my hon. colleague. I was so keen to wrap this up and get home, I just lost myself. I am sure that hon. colleagues probably felt much the same. In any event, we were talking about these children.
Why is it that children from modest means sometimes do very well and children that have lots do very poorly? Some of that has to do with nurturing. All of it has to do with nurturing. If one is wondering what the difference is between perhaps kids who are doing better than kids who do not do so well, it has a lot to do with encouragement from family and friends. It has a lot to do with having a sense of self worth and a sense of confidence and optimism. It has a lot to do with the sense of opportunity.
Our kids grow up in an environment where we are saying to them that this is a land of opportunity. We are people of opportunity. Our opportunity and what we can do in our life is very largely determined by what we think we can do in our lives. We can if we think we can. These are all the kinds of things that we can only achieve if we can achieve it within an atmosphere that values initiative, that values reward, that values the kinds of things that built our country in the first place.
A lot of things go into making a family and making a better life for our children. We all recognize that there are single parent families. We know that it is far more difficult in a single family environment to raise children and give them the kind of nurturing necessary because usually when the parent arrives home he or she is so tired that the last thing in the world he or she can do is think of all this nurturing. We understand and know that.
Therefore, anything that can be done in this social reform that can be aimed at giving children a sense of security and opportunity and the parents a feeling that they are not doing it alone is going to reward us as a society tremendously.
We also need to make one other very important consideration, in my opinion, in order for this new Canada to work. When people work and make an effort in society they need to be rewarded.
I just got off the phone with my ex-wife who, as a single parent, has done a great job in raising our son. He is just about finished high school. She was saying to me: "Look, I just got a bill from the tax department. I have to come up with another $1,800 on top of everything else I am paying. I don't have it and it is driving me crazy. Every time I think I am starting to get out of the glue, the taxes go up".
How on earth can we, as a country, continue to spend so much and put such a tax burden on everybody at all income levels? Everybody is crushed by this tax burden. The tax burden is there because we have been spending beyond our means for years and years.
That is why it is so absolutely important that we get this under control. It is going to hurt. We know it is going to hurt but it absolutely must be done. If we have the wherewithal, if we have the courage and the fortitude, we should be able to make a much brighter future for the children who are going to be coming in the next generation. That is where our focus should be. If we do that as a Parliament we will be rewarded for it.