Madam Speaker, I have listened to my colleague take a rather roundabout way before getting to the motion we have introduced today, which merely dealt with the striking of a parliamentary committee to try and seek some solutions to the poverty we have today.
He spoke of the 1989 commitment to eliminate poverty by the year 2000. It must be admitted that they have totally missed the boat. We have recently been given a figure of 1.5 million poor children in Canada.
He referred to common-law couples. I fail to see what this has to do with poverty. For me, poverty equals joblessness. Instead of talking about the deficit, he should have talked of the debt. The reason for poverty is the $600 billion in accumulated debt that has been run up in past years, because of needless national spending. This $600 billion cost us $50 billion in interest annually.
If we had $50 billion to invest in jobs every year, there would be far fewer poor people now.
I would just like to return to the opposition motion. I would like to hear whether the hon. member is really in agreement with this proposal to strike a parliamentary committee in order to find ways to eliminate poverty as quickly as possible.