It is double talk, as my colleague puts it. But I would even say that it is close to something like calumny.
Speaking of poverty, I would tell you that for the last 15 years, the evolution of poverty in Quebec and Canada is a cause for concern. The poor in Quebec and Canada today do not deserve the treatment they have been subjected to this past year.
I would like to mention briefly certain statistics on trends in poverty since 1973 to show you how badly the situation has deteriorated and the need to put in place real economic development policies, real job development policies, real labour training and regional development policies in order to stimulate Quebec's and Canada's economy. We do not need infrastructure programs which are subject to patronage and create only 45,000 part-time temporary jobs when we need close to 800,000 jobs to get back to the level of the early 1990s; we need real measures.
Since 1973, the number of poor families in Canada has increased by 41 per cent. During the same period, the number of poor people living alone jumped a significant 79 per cent. I am referring here to a study published by Mr. David Ross three weeks ago and which updates data on poverty in this country. If you want more details, and if my Liberal colleagues want to know that they are in fact deteriorating a situation which is already catastrophic for the poor families of Canada, I will gladly give you a copy of that study.
It says that the rapid growth of poverty among young families in Canada is one of the most disturbing trends in the area of family poverty. Not only are people getting poorer, but an increasing number of young people are in this situation. It is young families who are getting poorer. We had never seen that before.
Between 1981 and 1991, the poverty rate of families with parents 25 years old or less has almost doubled, increasing from 21.7 per cent to 40 per cent. This means that the number of young families living in poverty has nearly doubled. That is how we prepare young people, that is how we give them hope for the future, by making them poorer at a much higher pace than that experienced by their elders.
Another piece of information I thought could help this government become aware of the problem is that, in 1991, the number of poor dependent children under 18 years of age was close to 1.8 million. The poverty rate for single mothers is 52.1 per cent in Canada. It is interesting to know these statistics. Women who are single parents are the ones who suffer the most from inequities in terms of income and services, both in Quebec and in Canada. Compare that with Sweden, for example, where the poverty rate among single mothers is 6 per cent.
We used to say that education was to key to a good income. Well, let me mention some important data relating to graduates. Although people have diplomas, and it is a fact there is less poverty among people who are educated and who are flexible as a result of that education, and of course an education is always enriching, but it is not as enriching, in the literal sense, as it used to be. In 1981, 13.5 per cent of graduates of an educational institution, were poor. Today, more than 30 per cent are in that category.
I wanted to mention these figures in the House because they profoundly disturbed me. I thought, and that is what we learnt at school, at college or university, that thanks to post-manufacturing economies and the new global economy, and with the development of the leisure society, modern, industrialized societies would, over time, become prosperous. People said that in the early seventies. Today, according to the update published by Mr. Ross on poverty figures in Canada, the exact opposite has occurred.
It is a sign that we will need a major turnaround in the Canadian economy. This government will have to act responsibly, not by hitting at those who have trouble making ends meet, but by doing what we strongly suggested it should do, which is to carry out a thorough reform of the tax system and cut spending of the kind we pointed out earlier and have been pointing out to the Finance Minister from the outset, and especially since he appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance. But we want this government to stop coming down on people who do not deserve that kind of treatment.
In conclusion, I want to say that we will not be a party to the trivializing of democratic debate that was reflected in the motion presented this morning. We will not be a party to any measures that may appear in the finance committee's report, the majority report by the Liberal members of the finance committee. I have the impression, and I have been saying this for some time, that the government decided long ago what measures it would take to improve its finances and to reach the objective set by the Minister of Finance, and I am referring to a deficit that is 3 per cent of GDP in 1996-97. Furthermore, these measures are so appalling and entirely in line with the approach of the last budget of the Minister of Finance, in other words, a well-organized attack against the unemployed, senior citizens, welfare recipients and students, that the government is ashamed to put them before the House on December 2 as planned, and that on the other side of the House, they are trying to reduce the number of days provided to debate these suggestions.
Again, we will not be a party to a debate the Liberals do not want, a debate in which their promises will come back to haunt them. We will not be a party to what is actually nothing but a masquerade, to these endless rounds of consultations, because this government consults right and left but only retains what suits its purpose.
We saw this with the last budget, when the Minister of Finance approved a suggestion to make cuts in the Unemployment Insurance Fund, although there were thousands of suggestions that said not to do that. So much for consultation.
For all the reasons I just mentioned, the official opposition will vote against the motion presented by the Liberal government, and we will do so proudly, with our heads held high, because our aim is to defend the interests of Quebecers and Canadians, as we have done since the very beginning.