Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to comment on the comments made by my friend from the Bloc and I recognize immediately his genuine commitment in this area. We are co-members of the parliamentary committee and I admire his genuine dedication to the cause of this community. Having said that, we do disagree on some things.
I would bring to his attention the fact that when he asks about what more there may be to come I would go directly to the budget speech where the Minister of Finance said: "These measures are a step on the way to a better life for many thousands of our fellow citizens". I am sure the Minister of Finance is quite prepared to be reminded that this is just a step as we move into subsequent budgets that I am sure this government will be around to present.
One of the questions that was put by my friend had to do with the fact that perhaps the opportunities fund was speaking to a matter of provincial jurisdiction. The way that the fund has been designed is to be very collaborative with the provincial governments, to share information between provincial governments, to work with provincial governments because clearly this is a challenge to all levels of government. It is very important that the member realize to what extent this is a collaborative effort and not one imposed by the federal government.
On the question of real costs and the complaints that have been placed against the tax credits in the past, that the interpretation of their application has been too rigid, there are two points. First, the minister responsible, my colleague will remember when she appeared before the parliamentary committee, made a commitment that she has made to me many times that the department would exercise maximum compassion in interpreting theses. She has appeared before our group since that time to repeat that commitment.
I would also suggest that the member be aware that the changes to the tax system that were announced in the budget and that were recommended by the task force for the most part are very measurable. The are real costs under the medical services expense credit and therefore the vagueness of more definitional kinds of credits does not apply.
The member referred to the parliamentary committee report and what it asked for as against the government's task force that I chaired. The fact is most of the people who were critical of the task force report were critical on the grounds that obviously the government was not going to act on it because it was pretty much the same material as was contained in the parliamentary report that the government had not acted on so therefore what is the point?
The reality is that the government, in this case, has acted on our report and many of the measures it did act on were measures the parliamentary committee had recommended last year. The government made a mistake by not acting on that report. We acknowledged that and that is why the task force was struck and most of those things have been restored.
Very specifically, the funding for organizations, for enhanced citizenship in the communities and for integration were all restored. VRDP, vocational rehabilitation of disabled persons, was extended for another year. These are all things that the member had been pushing for in the many questions to the former minister of human resources development.
I am getting to a question for my colleague. I sincerely hope that my colleague could tell me which of the recommendations of the task force or the parliamentary committee he would priorize as the one that we should go after next.