Madam Speaker, I must say that it is absolutely necessary to keep working together, not only in this party, because here we really care about the status of women and the status of minority groups. As you know, many women are members of minority groups. My point is that we intend to do everything we can, despite an economic situation that is still pretty serious, to ensure that the dollars we have go directly to those who need them most. These are sometimes difficult decisions. We have groups that do good work, but the dollars we give them do not go directly to those who really need them.
When I consider the spirit of co-operation we see today when we talk about the status of women, especially poor women, and when I consider that for years we have had constitutional debates to decide which level of government should do what, and all kinds of commissions, and all very expensive, I start
thinking that if we had worked together and collected all those dollars that were spent over the years and if we had all decided that the best thing we could do for Canadians was to sit down and do something about their economic situation, just imagine what we could have accomplished. We could have a national day care system. We would not have to fight about whether this is a provincial or a federal area of jurisdiction or priority. It would be wonderful if we could do that.
However, the fact is that we have provincial governments that have certain responsibilities which they are not prepared to relinquish. That is mine. Hands off. Even if what you want to do is very good, do not interfere. This causes problems, delays and a lot of frustration, especially for this minister, who realizes that these are very difficult issues.
When we consider what we could do if, first of all, we invested in our children, in children from infancy to 6 years of age, if we could intervene at that level, we would not have to build prisons, which we will have to do because we cannot afford the luxury of helping our children. We will do what we can. I would like to ask all those people who want the best for our children, for women and the future of our country, to get together and work on this and take the dollars we have to really do something good for Canadians.