Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to my colleague's speech. I cannot let some of her remarks pass without comment. It is a pity, because I had the impression that my colleague had a heart, and could be moved from time to time by child poverty or the situation of single parent families.
It is clear from her speech that she is prepared to go to great lengths in this area in order to do something for the poorest members of society. But she has made a colossal error in her remarks about social housing. I am sorry, my dear colleague, but despite the promises made by the Prime Minister in 1993 during the election campaign, and the promises made by the Minister of Finance during the same period concerning social housing, nothing has as yet been done.
They were going to give money to housing co-operatives so they could make improvements. But, since 1993, nothing more has been heard. There has been nothing. No money has been made available. The same thing goes for construction of new social housing.
Since 1993, this government has not come up with a red cent for building new social housing. It is therefore incorrect to tell Canadians that this government is trying to do something about the problem of social housing. It is true that the budget shows it is paying a certain amount for social housing, but this is for existing housing. It therefore has responsibilities towards those residents.
Now, this responsibility has been transferred to the provinces, but minus the tax points or the money that should go with it. The result is that now the whole social housing policy in Quebec must be reviewed because the federal government is not meeting its obligations, even though they were renewed during the election campaign. I would therefore ask my colleague across the way simply to rectify what she said about social housing.