Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions. Poverty in this country is a very important issue to me because my riding is among the poorest in the country. In addition, in this budget, we tried to cover these issues of poverty and the deficit. We will ask the finance committee to discuss these questions in detail.
I think that the balance of trying to deal with questions of poverty, whether it be in Montreal or Winnipeg, is the question that haunts this whole country, This government does not for one minute take lightly the limitations it has in dealing with questions of poverty.
As a former critic on social policy for this caucus in opposition, I know we were very critical of the last government for not addressing questions of poverty. That is why we stabilized equalization payments and why in this particular act we have stabilized the Canada assistance plan. We have moved away from the war against the poor and moved toward supporting initiatives that can help them.
The Minister of Human Resources Development is very active. In fact he participated in a meeting this morning dealing with questions of income security and reforms to unemployment insurance to ensure they do not turn out to be an attack on those who are in need.
The President of the Treasury Board is addressing the questions of waste and the budget not only on an annual basis but I would say on a weekly basis. Great progress is being made to overcome questions of waste in individual programs.