Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague whether he agrees with me that, if we looked through the past fifty years of history, we would be hard pressed to find such eloquent examples of governments deliberately contributing to people's impoverishment. My colleague will recall, because I know he is interested in history and is a reasonable and educated man, that, in 1968, for example, the Liberals talked about a just society. He will recall, despite his young age—I think he must be several years my junior—that the Liberals were going to create a just society and eliminate poverty in Canadian society.
Would my colleague agree with the three measures I propose for fighting poverty? The first, as the member for Shefford said, is that social condition must be included in the Canadian Human Rights Act. This would make it possible to invalidate provisions in the Employment Insurance Act and in the Banks Act. The second is to convince the banks to intervene in disadvantaged communities. The United States has had a law since 1977 called the Community Reinvestment Act. Can I count on my colleague to promote these measures?