Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity to comment in this prebudget debate. It is an extension of one of the innovations of our government that I am most proud of, that of holding prebudget consultations. Hearings are held across the country to hear from ordinary Canadians, organizations, interest groups and business associations as to what Canadians feel should be in the next federal budget. As the House knows, the finance committee tabled its report on those consultations very recently.
We recognize that Canadians from all walks of life at all levels have made a major contribution to the fiscal success of this government over the last four and a half years. They have endured some significant sacrifices in the quality of their health care, in access to post-secondary education, in social services.
In a number of areas Canadians have very much been partners with government in achieving what by next year's budget will be a balanced budget for the first time in nearly three decades. It is important that we listen to what Canadians are saying now about the future for this country and the path for this government.
Health care is a major concern of my constituents. They see the stress on the health care system. They are very much supportive of the idea of assisting people with their pharmaceutical needs because that is often a good substitute for hospital care or replacement for hospital care. As we have an increasingly aging population, but a population that is also able to stay in its own homes, in its communities, they are very much aware of the need for a home care program. I encourage the government to proceed with both those initiatives.
One of the prime concerns of my constituents is the needs of our children and our young people. I would like to talk about that for a few minutes.
I certainly want to encourage the government to proceed as well with its national child program. It is important that we set up ways of finding out how effective are the measures that we are taking. We have numerous programs in government. We do not often enough stop and ask and put in place the tools for finding out whether they are achieving the objectives we hope they are achieving.
More and more young children in Canada are living in poverty. It is not an acceptable situation for one of the wealthiest countries in the world. As we start down a program to work away at the number of young children who do not have enough to eat, who do not have adequate housing, who are therefore disadvantaged when it comes to becoming properly educated, children who live in abusive situations, I think it is very important that we ensure on an ongoing basis that what we are doing is achieving the results we want and that we are able to shift course and shift those resources to things that will work if what we have started is not working.
Let me talk a little about youth as well. Many children who start life in poverty become a risk at youth because they have not had the basic advantages that most of us take for granted. We certainly have as an objective that every Canadian child enjoys the right to be well fed, well housed, well cared for and well educated wherever we live in this great country. These become the youth who have an extremely difficult time finding and keeping employment and ever being responsible for themselves in life. I think the continuation and the strengthening of the youth employment strategy is vital to this country.
My own experience in holding a youth employment info fair in my riding just a few weeks ago was that young people and their parents and their friends are telling me they do not know enough about the programs that are out there. But I am also seeing cracks in the system, cracks for those very young people at risk who most need the help of our society.
I encourage the government, as the finance committee has done in its report, to give more attention to those community based programs that can work with young people and their families to overcome some of the disadvantages many of them have had earlier in life and to set them on a path in life that is going to be productive for them and for our communities.
I talked about poor children. The fact is in the vast majority of cases, well over 90%, children are poor because their mothers are poor. I urge the Minister of Finance, as he prepares to finalize his budget and present it to this House early in the new year, to take into consideration the different implications for women than for men of different measures he might take in that budget.
There is no question that in Canada, as in every country around the world, women continue to be economically disadvantaged. As long as that is the case, women will continue to be socially and politically disadvantaged.
Yesterday the minister for the status of women was asked in the House how good a job she is doing and how much co-operation she is getting from the Minister of Finance to be coached on how to do gender equity analysis of the budget.
I urge the Minister of Finance to look very carefully at that issue and to consider when he tables his budget outlining for Parliament how it affects women and many millions of children in this country differently than it affects men.
For example, the finance committee has recommended that we increase the limits for RRSP contributions. One of our problems in terms of equity is the major disparity in retirement between men and women. Most of the people in Canada who benefit from RRSP contributions are men. I ask the Minister of Finance to consider whether by increasing the RRSP levels he is contributing to reducing economic disparity or contributing to increasing it.
I also urge him to look at tax bracket creep. Because tax brackets have not been indexed for some time now, more and more people at the low income end of the scale who did not have to pay income tax before are finding that they now have to pay it.
Again this is an issue of equity. The majority of Canadians at the low income end of the scale are women. That has a direct impact on the children those women are raising. It has a direct impact on how those women provide for their children.
How well the economy does and how well Canadians do will continue to depend on the strength of the economy in various areas.
I want to speak about the high technology sector. This sector is extremely important to the national capital region, of which I represent a portion. This sector is also extremely important to the economic growth of the entire country.
I urge the minister to look very carefully at the need for a national human resources strategy to ensure that we continue to be one of the top performing countries in the world in information and telecommunications technology, rather than losing our place and losing up to 600,000 potential jobs in the next 10 to 15 years. There should be continuing support for the transition of research to actual technology and products in that sector. I urge the government to put in place much better means of measuring data in the industry, its performance in the international market and its human resources needs. That will enable the sector to continue to thrive in the economy and continue to provide good paying jobs for many Canadians in the years to come.