Madam Speaker, on the weekend I happened to be in the hon. member's constituency of Vancouver East. I understand the difficult social and economic conditions of which she speaks.
The east end of Vancouver in many respects is a tragic scene of economic devastation and social problems. For six years now British Columbia has been governed by a New Democratic government which has raised taxes and in so doing increased unemployment, reducing opportunities for the people who now find themselves on skid row in Vancouver.
The same thing happened in Ontario. Bob Rae raised taxes and unemployment skyrocketed. If we look at Ontario we see that the Mike Harris government has cut taxes, revenues have gone up, with them health care spending has gone up and so too has employment. Unemployment has gone down.
I ask the hon. member to compare her constituency to the city of Calgary, for instance, which is in the province that has the lowest provincial taxes in the country and an unemployment rate of approximately 5%, nearly a third of what it is in the east end of Vancouver.
Could she comment on the regional disparities with respect to taxes and economic growth which exist in the country?