Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. friend who detailed very accurately that the finance committee travelled extensively. It met with many Canadians.
After reading the report carefully I wonder whether or not the committee listened to the people with whom it met. Much of what I heard people from coast to coast to coast say is not reflected very accurately in the report. I would not say it is not reflected at all. That would be silly. I think it is called keeping the balance.
We heard that the country was not in balance, that it was out of kilter, and that the weights were a bit lopsided. For some Canadians things are going incredibly well. I know my hon. friend is very serious in her work and would agree that for many Canadians life has actually never been better.
For bankers and those holding bank stock today, man alive, this is as good as it gets. The stock market is skyrocketing. A lot of people are saying that exports are up and they have never done better. It is actually true that many Canadians will have a fantastic holiday. There will be champagne corks on Bay Street and on main streets of the country, wherever there are financial institutions.
The chartered banks are booming with historically high profits. Another set of banks are doing a booming business, the nearly 1,000 food banks across the country. We should be embarrassed this afternoon, speaking in the House of Commons and knowing that there are nearly 1,000 food banks. In fact they have serious problems because there is not enough food for hungry people.
There are 1.4 million children living in poverty. Only one industrialized nation has a worse record than Canada's and that is the United States. We are second from the bottom in terms of accepting the reality that there are poor children in this country.