Mr. Speaker, the member made a statement that this is 1996 and not the 1930s. With that statement, notwithstanding her other comments, she summarily dismissed the family as the basic unit of society. We are changed. Get with it. Divorce is a regular thing, no big problem.
People in this place should know in this place, in the gallery and who are watching the debates on their televisions that there are more members in this place who honour, respect and need the family than that member has demonstrated in her speech. Strong families make strong countries and the member should not be dismissing the family in this place.
My question has to do with another statement the member made. That was her assertion that in Quebec the payments grid, the formula, goes a long way to solving the problem of child poverty. The member will well know that if two people making a certain level of income separate and continue to have the same level of income, their economic circumstances are deteriorated for one reason and one reason alone. Two people living apart need a second residence, a very expensive proposition in terms of the utilization of disposable income.
How does the member rationalize that somehow any formula to distribute the income of two people is going to improve the situation of children when another major liability has been assumed by those two people for the rest of their lives?