Mr. Speaker, when I hear members of the Reform Party speak I sometimes wonder if they know any people who are poor, if they know any people who are vulnerable, if they know the women in my riding living in subsidized housing, working for minimum wage, supporting their families on welfare sometimes, trying very hard to raise children decently on an income of less than $12,000 a year.
I know those people. I would be happy to take the hon. member out to visit my riding to find out just how hard those people are working and what they need to support their dreams for the future and the dreams of their children.
It is also important to point out to this member and others in the Reform Party the cost of poverty. Getting our debt and deficit down does depend on ending poverty in this country. Poverty is expensive. Poverty costs. One out of every five children in this country is poor. That child is four times as likely to end up seriously ill than the child who is not poor. That means that one child simply because of poverty will cost the health care system in this country more than the other four non-poor children. We cannot get our debt and deficit under control unless we get people out of poverty.
Poor children are four times more likely to drop out of school. At the age of 15 they are out on the streets and five years later they have never held a job, they are living in poverty, they are perpetuating the cycle of poverty. That costs us money. When children in poverty drop out of school we pay the price. We pay the price in wasted lives and wasted productivity.
We cannot tackle the problem of the debt and deficit unless we tackle the problem of poverty in this country which costs us all every day.