I will go more quickly, but one quote in particular attracted my attention because this speech was made by the present Minister of Human Resources Development. He said that members should set aside the fine speeches prepared by the departments and open their eyes and their hearts a little.
They should try to face reality and talk about Canada's real problems. Not one day went by in the House without a minister or member of the Conservative government talking about the deficit. That is what they said at the time.
I never heard the then finance minister talk about Canada's real deficit of one million children living in poverty. That is where we should be investing. That is the real tragedy. In 10 years these children should be our educators, business people, politicians and journalists but they will never get that far because they cannot get a head start. One million children living in poverty is a tremendous loss. That is the big deficit we must face. Yet, nothing was done to solve that problem.
In 1989, the current Minister of Human Resources, the same member who is now a minister, authorized the cut in the UI program, did not provide more daycare spaces, voiced his intention to cut social programs to fight the deficit, and did not, in my opinion, table a real program to create permanent jobs. Let me give you an example: The Youth Service Corps is a program designed to give $150 per week to young Canadians. In other times, it would be nice to create part-time jobs for our young people, but these are not real jobs.
Such a program maintains duplication in the field of vocational training and this is costly for everyone. In the meantime, his colleague, the Minister of Industry, refuses to allocate funds for the conversion of military and civilian industries. I raise this issue because we have an industry back home called MIL Davie, which waited in vain for a year to get an answer from the Conservative government regarding a simple ferry, and which has now been waiting for another year to get an answer from the new Liberal government. If approved, this project would create at least 700 jobs.
We are poor because of the deficit. We cannot help needy children since we are poor. In the meantime, there are costs. I am truly disappointed because the members of this House-some of whom seem to approve-will not even seize the opportunity to vote and confirm our commitment to fight child poverty.