Mr. Speaker, I thank you for leading us during this debate. You have been patient. I am sorry I broke the rules so often, and I promise I will be more disciplined next time I take part in a debate.
I feel the need to recall, for the benefit of listeners who are joining us just now, that on this allotted day the official Opposition insisted on moving:
That this House condemn the government's inability to re-establish and increase budgets for social housing construction programs.
I thank our critic, the hon. member for Laurentides. You will understand that each and every word in this motion is meaningful. We decided to address the issue of social housing because we feel there is a subtle but nevertheless unquestionable correlation between social housing and poverty.
The definition of poverty rests in part on statistics. In our society people are poor if they have to devote more than 56.2 per cent of their income to their essential needs such as clothing, housing and food.
We are having this debate at a time when large parts of Canadian as well as Quebec society have never been so poor.
For our part, we are firmly convinced, and this will be a focus of commitment for the Official Opposition, that there are ways to put an end to that poverty. I must add that the speakers on the government side have addressed social housing somewhat in isolation, as if this were not related to the issue of poverty. Poverty puts on a new face. Being poor in 1994 is not the same as being poor in the 1980s. Deep changes have occurred since then. In 1994, we do not speak of poverty like the Senate did in the 1970s when it was mandated to study poverty in Canada. Poverty strikes the young and people of my age, in their early thirties.