Debates of Feb. 11th, 1999

Supply

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for Shefford for this opportunity to debate an issue as important as poverty, and children living in poverty in particular.

I must congratulate the hon. member for Shefford, who has done a wonderful job on this issue. Ever since she was elected to this place, she has had a thought-provoking input. To her credit, she also made representations at various levels to denounce the alarming growth in poverty, especially among children.

Like the hon. member for Shefford, we have noticed that the poverty situation is critical. There are at least 5 million Quebeckers and Canadians living in poverty today. Since 1989, poverty has grown by approximately 45% in Canada. That represents a substantial deterioration of the situation.

You will recall that 1989 is the year when Canada signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since 1989, not only have we not managed to reduce child poverty in this country, but the number of poor children has actually increased by 500,000. In 1989, we had 1 million children living in poverty, with parents who were themselves living in poverty; today their number has grown to 1.5 million.

The situation has worsened particularly since 1993, when this government took office. There are three reasons for the spiralling poverty of parents and children in Quebec and in Canada, all of them attributable to the policies of the Liberal Party and of the Minister of Finance, who loves to tell us about his record surpluses. What he fails to mention is that his pockets are full because those of the public, particularly the poor, are emptier.

Since it first came to power in 1993, this government has deliberately set out on three courses of poverty creation. First, it has increased taxes. Since the Minister of Finance, the member for LaSalle—Émard, brought down the first Liberal budget in 1994, individual and corporate taxes have gone up by $34 billion.

Of this $34 billion, over $20 billion comes out of the pockets of individual taxpayers. People pay $20 billion more in taxes today than they did before the Liberal Minister of Finance brought down his first budget.

Corporate taxes have increased by over $14 billion since 1994 and this has led to pockets of poverty. When corporations are overtaxed—as they are by the Minister of Finance—they do not create enough jobs, nor do they make the contribution to the community's prosperity that they should. This is the first problem created by this government that has led to an increase in poverty.

The second is the cuts in social transfers to the provinces, particular those for social assistance, post-secondary education and health.

With his 1995 budget, the Minister of Finance inaugurated a regulatory mechanism for his various transfers to the provinces for social programs.

Every year, the provinces have $6 billion taken from them, to finance social assistance in particular. Social assistance is an anti-poverty program which helps those in greatest need. Since 1995, this government has set in motion a totally hypocritical policy which means that, year after year, without any need for the Minister of Finance to make any announcement, $6 billion is taken away from the provinces, in part to finance social assistance, all the anti-poverty programs, and health.

By the year 2003, some $40 billion will have been drained off by this government to finance social programs. After all that we have the Minister of Finance standing up, hand over heart, to talk about poor children. This is shameful. This is hypocrisy, pure and simple. This Minister of Finance ought to be ashamed. He would like to bask in praise for his success in improving public finances, but this success has been achieved at the expense of the most disadvantaged, at the expense of middle- and low-income taxpayers. He deserves no congratulations. He ought to be ashamed of his part in destroying the legacy of his father, a man who was a great builder of social programs in his day.

The third deliberate action by this government that has had an effect on poverty is the creation of an employment insurance plan that is so Manichaean and so removed from its initial objectives as to have only 36% of the unemployed in 1999 benefit from it. That is a shame. And if it does not amount to throwing families and children deliberately into poverty, what does it do.

At the moment, only 36% of the unemployed receive employment insurance. That means that 64% of the unemployed, who should receive benefits, are marginalized on the labour market, forced to take welfare and impoverished by this government.

Therefore, we have three primary sources of poverty arising from a term and a half of Liberals in office and an unscrupulous Minister of Finance cutting wildly everywhere it hurt the most, that is, in the pockets of the public already hit by poverty and struggling with every month end. Then they come bleating about poverty and talking about returning the money the provinces had cut. Are they hypocrites or what? They are the ones who cut the funds to the provincial governments to pay for health care, social welfare and antipoverty programs and now they come crying over the fate of the poor.

The Minister of Human Resources Development even wrote a book during his term of office. I have criticized that enough, it would be overdoing it if I did it again today. He was going on in his book about the most disadvantaged when he was the artisan of the marginalization of whole families. Thousands of children are living in poverty because of him. He bleats on in his book, when he should sit down in his office and redo the entire employment insurance program. He should propose something reasonable, which does not exclude the unemployed from a plan intended to help them.

On the subject of these three sources of poverty, we in the Bloc Quebecois have presented our proposals on several occasions since September, following our prebudget tour of Quebec. The first time was before the Standing Committee on Finance. The second was when we tabled a minority report in the context of the prebudget activities of the Standing Committee on Finance. And finally, the third time was when we held a press conference in December to identify our budget expectations.

Given these three deliberate measures that have pushed people toward poverty, the motion should have asked the government—and I say this with all due respect to my colleague—to, first of all, improve access to employment insurance, because that program no longer makes any sense. The EI program systematically puts families on the street and increases poverty.

Second, the motion should have asked for an increase in transfers to the provinces. Not one quarter or one half of what should be given, but the whole amount taken from the provinces year after year, that is $6 billion annually until the year 2003.

Third, we agree with the Conservative Party that tax tables should be indexed. Clearly, these tables should be indexed.

Our three suggestions are within the budget limits that a responsible federal government must set for itself. If we look at the anticipated surpluses for this year and next year, our three proposals are fully within the limits of the federal government's financial authority.

We are asking the government to improve access to employment insurance by providing up to $6 billion. We are also asking it to set aside another $6 billion for transfers to the provinces. This makes a total of $12 billion, to which we must add $2 billion to index the tax brackets. We arrive at a grand total of $14 billion, while this year's surplus is expected to be around $15 billion.

By contrast, the Progressive Conservative Party's proposals, including those made in its minority report, in December, largely exceeds this anticipated surplus. I wish to point that out to the hon. member for Shefford. When one makes proposals, one must evaluate them thoroughly and, based on an initial assessment, it would cost $21 billion to implement the proposals made by the Conservatives. This would largely exceed the moneys available for this year and next year.

I also want to say something else. With all due respect to my colleague from Shefford—as I said earlier, this does not apply to her as she has been doing a wonderful job of fighting child poverty—I cannot help but feel a little uneasy with a motion like this one coming from the Conservative Party, especially since it was a Conservative government that de-indexed the tax tables in 1986 and redefined the statistics on child poverty so that, on paper at least, it would appear that things were looking up, while in fact they were not.

I am also a little—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member, but time has run out.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Could I have the unanimous consent of the House to finish my sentence?

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, to conclude, while I salute the work done by my colleague from Shefford, my uneasiness comes from the fact that the measures that plunged the people of Canada and Quebec into poverty in the first place were Conservative measures. I would simply ask her to take note of this fact and perhaps accept on behalf of her party the blame for its past actions.

[Diane St-Jacques, Progressive Conservative, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, for the kind remarks he made at the beginning of his speech.

As for what was done back then, I would remind him that we were in a major recession at the time and had to take certain measures accordingly. I will say nothing further.

I have a question for the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot about the UN committee's report, released in December 1998. In its recommendations, the committee expressed its concern over the fact that, in all the provinces except New Brunswick and Newfoundland, the national child tax benefit intended for all children of low income families only went to children of low income parents holding down jobs, because the federal government allows the provinces to deduct the full amount of the child tax benefit from the social assistance received by parents.

The committee recommended that the child tax benefit program be amended so that provinces may no longer use it to reduce social assistance.

I would like to have the hon. member's opinion on this.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying earlier, I have a lot of respect for the hon. member and her work. My initial remarks, good ones, carried through to the end. I did not betray my thought, even though I took a shot at her party and past actions.

That said, there are a number of ways to reduce poverty. We chose three targets, because the government has acted and can act rapidly on these three, which are the primary source of increased poverty over the past five years.

I do not deny that a review of the child tax benefit could help children but, if we analyze the situation, we can see that the government exacerbated the situation in three ways.

First there was a tax increase for middle income families. Many of them were pushed into the low income bracket because of government taxes.

Second, accessibility to employment insurance has dropped to 36%. It seems to me that the effects on poverty of working to raise this 36% average back up to the 80% of a few years ago would be direct, effective and unbiased.

Third, we cannot cut $40 billion by the year 2003 from transfer payments to the provinces for social programs without that having an impact on poverty.

We have taken this approach because we know that the federal government can address these three parameters starting with its next budget. I do not, however, deny the UN recommendation, and once again I say to my colleague that she is doing a good job, and I hope she will keep at it.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I listened to the dialogue between the two members it occurred to me that the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot did not answer the question so I will repeat it for him because obviously he did not hear it. It must be the only reason that he would not reply to it.

The question was whether provinces should be allowed to claw back the increased tax benefit zeroed in on tax credits for child tax credit.

This is very appropriate because that is exactly what Ontario has done. As we know through some of our discussions on the social union, this is where we lose the whole concept of our policy even though we in our good intentions in this House may well say we should increase the tax credit to ensure that money gets into the hands of low income families. It means nothing if the province turns around and says that under its social assistance system that is additional income entering the household and therefore it will reduce the social assistance payment.

How does the member want to address it? Will he answer the question or not?

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, such statements denote a lack of judgment, because of course the provinces have fewer means, after they have been pushed to the wall, after funds have been taken from them. All the surplus the government has accumulated has had two sources, the provinces and the unemployed.

Since the provinces have their backs to the wall because of the federal government's actions, the hon. member ought to look in his own back yard and look at what the government has done and, as a responsible MP, get his Minister of Finance to change his attitude. The minister is more concerned with his success in connection with the record surpluses than with the plight of Canada's poor.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise in the House to speak on the motion brought forward by the member for Shefford.

Any time we have an opportunity to speak on issues about poverty and what is happening in the country it is important that we do that. I thank the member for the work she has done and for bringing forward this motion.

I begin by talking about this kind of motion and the kinds of debates we have in the House because it speaks to the issue of needing to look at the record of what has happened. Unfortunately the reality is that for the last two decades poor Canadians have heard again and again many promises about reducing unemployment and eliminating poverty in Canada. But the reality is that none of those promises has been fulfilled, not by the Tory government when it was in power and certainly not by the Liberal government since 1993.

The reality for poor Canadians is that they are sinking deeper and deeper into poverty and more and more people are facing unemployment, facing part time work, low wages, underemployment, shrinking welfare rates and poor bashing. That is the reality of what is going on in Canada.

I will take the issue of the record and the credibility of what it is we do as political parties and talk about what happened yesterday on Parliament Hill because certainly the media today are full of news stories of how Mr. Clark was jostled in the crowd and that he went there with good intentions to speak to people but poor Mr. Clark, look what happened to him.

I was there yesterday at that rally.

I saw what happened and I saw the reaction of people. First, it was not a little nest of two or three people who decided to take on Mr. Clark and give him a hard time. It was 200 or 300 people who were outraged that he came unannounced, uninvited to that rally basically with a media entourage to take away from the rally.

If Mr. Clark had genuinely wanted to find out how people were feeling, if he wanted to understand what people were experiencing he could have gone to the Bronson Centre the night before, Tuesday night, where people had arrived on buses and where people were sitting down in the cafeteria eating their supper.

He could have gone in quietly, talked to people and said “I am the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. I want to find out what your concerns are”. But he chose not to do that.

It was a media show that arrived with Mr. Clark. I talked to many people in that rally. The reaction they had to Mr. Clark was absolutely genuine because they were angry. They understood what the record was.

People do not forget. The rally was not a rent a crowd. It was not people who professionally demonstrated. These were people who are hurting, who are homeless, who are poor. They came to Parliament Hill to meet with the Prime Minister and were turned away.

The reaction that Mr. Clark got was no surprise to me and no surprise to anyone who was there. If he did not understand that, if he did not understand the reaction he got, then he does not understand much about this issue. That is very important for the record. Poor Mr. Clark, he got a rough time.

As far as the motion goes, it is basically supportable even though we will not be voting on it.

The issues we have to address are not just tax credits. What we have to address is a systematic problem of chronic poverty and unemployment in this country.

What we have called for in the New Democratic Party is for the government to set real targets, achievable targets for eliminating poverty and reducing unemployment.

This is something the Liberals are very proud they have done in terms of the deficit. What we have been saying is we have to do this regarding poverty and unemployment.

Again, if members look at the record it becomes very clear. I heard one Liberal member speak about how the Liberals have produced a balanced and moderate approach.

We have to understand that the so-called balanced and moderate approach has been at the expense of more and more people living below the poverty line. It has been at the expense of more and more unemployment in this country.

If the Tories are serious, if the Liberals are serious about dealing with this issue of poverty, if we truly did have a belief in 1989 through the unanimous resolution of the House that we would eliminate child poverty, then we need a systematic approach. Unfortunately that is lacking in this motion.

On the issue of tax credits I believe we should have fair taxation. The reality is the richest one-fifth of Canadians receive close to half of all the income in Canada while the poorest one-fifth of Canadians receive just 3.1%.

When we look at the child tax benefit, there is an injustice because it is not indexed. I would certainly agree with the motion on that basis.

This simply does not go far enough. We need to talk about fair taxation. We need to look at what the Vanier Institute is saying in its recent report, that tax cuts benefit mostly wealthy and upper income Canadians.

If we are talking about tax credits, we have to look at the taxation system and say why is it that wealthy Canadians are paying less in taxes proportionately and poor Canadians are paying more.

I would like to address what I heard when listening to the debate today as the member from the Reform Party was speaking to the question of what a poverty line is. I was really outraged by the comments the Reform member came out with.

He talked about what true poverty is. He said true poverty is basically kids who are starving to death. He said that actually there are not that many children who die of starvation in Canada.

One had to infer from this that we probably do not have much of a problem relative to, say, the third world.

The hon. member should take the time to go to almost any community in Canada to see the poverty that exists. There are kids who go to school hungry. They do not do very well at school because they do not have enough to eat. There are hundreds of thousands of people who live in substandard housing. There are about 100,000 Canadians who are homeless. That is poverty. It is poverty in our country. It has been recognized by the United Nations committee that has done research on our compliance with the UN covenant on social, economic and cultural rights.

I would ask the member from the Reform Party what he is really saying when he says that we do not have poverty in this country. Is the member saying that he wants to see people dying of starvation on the street before the Reform Party will acknowledge that we have huge income inequities in this country and serious problems with the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources?

The Reform Party's answer is simply to cut taxes. I would ask Reform members to look at our neighbours to the south, whom they always like to use as an example. If tax rates are lower in the United States, and I believe the Reform Party thinks they are, why does it have an even higher poverty rate than Canada?

These issues require very serious examination and a serious program if we are to address poverty in Canada.

The member who introduced this motion has done good work in bringing this issue forward. It is important that we work together as much as possible, particularly on bills such as Bill S-11 which seeks to have social condition included in the Canadian Human Rights Act as a ground against which there cannot be discrimination. We also have to have credibility and acknowledge what has been done in the past.

I say to those members, in terms of the policies of their party, if they are truly committed to eliminating poverty, then they should stand in defence of social housing. It was actually under the Tory government that social housing was gutted in this country and the job was finished off by the Liberal government.

Let us get the record straight and let us make a real commitment to reduce poverty and unemployment in Canada.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, anytime is the right time to talk about poverty in Canada in this place. We should do it more and I wish we could have an allotted day or an emergency debate on poverty so that we could hear from more members of parliament.

This debate about poverty so far has been about taxes. People who are living in poverty do not pay taxes because they do not have an income.

I am a little disappointed because, as of yet, I have not heard one mention in this debate about the family. The member will know that lone parent families—and I say lone parent, not single parent—number about 12% of all families in Canada and account for about 46% of all children living in poverty.

Child poverty is a politically convenient term for family poverty. We have to understand that point fundamentally and we have to deal with it. If we are to deal with child poverty, family poverty, and we know that almost half of it is due to family breakdown in Canada, then the member should be prepared to deal with the reasons the Canadian family is under attack and the reasons the Canadian family is breaking down.

Divorce, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, adultery, and all kinds of other reasons for the family breaking down are the root causes of the majority of poverty in Canada. I want to know whether the member would agree and if she would encourage her colleagues in the House to start talking about the real fundamentals of poverty, the breakdown of the Canadian family.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his comments. I would agree that the issue of child poverty is really a political term that has been created. I have to say, though, that it has come mostly from his own party which has chosen to characterize poverty as a children's issue. The Liberal Party has campaigned on the child tax benefit.

I would agree that when we look at poor children we have to look at poor families and the fact that most of those families are unemployed.

Families are under attack, but if we look at what has happened over the past few decades, families are under attack because of public policies that have undermined the ability of families to cope in our society. We see rising unemployment, shrinking EI benefits, the lack of housing, the lack of social programs and even welfare rates that have been attacked by many provincial governments because of the shrinking health and social transfers. Those have all been public policy decisions which have attacked the family.

It all depends on how one wants to look at this. If lone parent families live in poverty they will have a lot of difficulties, but that does not necessarily mean that family breakdown has to do with economic and social conditions or the lack of housing and decent paying jobs for women.

Maybe the member and I have different perspectives on how we look at this issue, but I would agree that when we talk about poverty we should talk about the whole family. We should also talk about single people. Some Canadians who are feeling the worst effects of poverty are single people. However, we do not like to talk about single people because it is unpopular to do so.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Madam Speaker, my intervention is more a comment than a question.

I appreciate the member pointing out that what I said may have been misinterpreted.

When I look at the pictures of our kids and the things that I have seen secondhand from third world countries, it tears my heart out. That is what I was trying to communicate.

Certainly, if we have people who are hungry here, we need to look after them. There is no question about that.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am glad the member from the Reform Party clarified his comments. We only have to look to our own backyards, to our own communities, to his community and to my community, to see that those same situations exist. Maybe they are not as stark, maybe we do not see them as much on the media, but they are visible, they do exist and it means that we have to work here at home.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This certainly has no reflection on yourself, but I cannot help noticing that in debates of this nature, throughout the time that I have been in this House, the first person who asks a question or makes a comment generally gets four to five minutes and the second person gets thirty seconds. Thus, the second person, or possibly the third, does not get an opportunity to reflect upon what they may want to say or the reaction to it.

I am wondering if it is at all possible for that to be a little more balanced, where the first person could have a minute or two and then the second person could have a minute or two.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The hon. member certainly has a good suggestion. Maybe we could now proceed with one minute questions and one minute answers. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Very well, I have no objection to that.

[Gilles Bernier, Progressive Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to the motion proposed by my hon. friend from Shefford. I will be sharing my time with my good colleague from Chicoutimi.

Perhaps the most visible sign of poverty in Canada's cities is the growing number of homeless people. In the 10 minutes I have available to me I would like to discuss the cause of homelessness and the lack of adequate housing for many low income families. I will also show how this government has failed Canadians in need of housing and suggest some ideas on how we might begin to tackle this problem.

In the recently released Toronto task force report on the homeless, Dr. Anne Golden noted that there are four principle causes of homelessness. First, there are social factors that have contributed to the breakdown of families and other social support networks. Domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse and the alienation of individuals from family and friends have all added to the problem of homelessness.

Poverty as well continues to aggravate this problem. In recent years the incidence and depth of poverty have increased because of changes in the structure of the labour market. For example, Canada's unemployment rate continues to be about double that of the United States. As well, reductions in transfers from the federal government to individuals have left low income Canadians with fewer resources to pay for housing.

Third, many people who suffer from mental illness and addiction become homeless after being deinstitutionalized because communities lack adequate support programs. Inadequate discharge planning of hospitals and jails also results in people being released on the street with no support systems.

Finally, since this Liberal government was elected in 1993 the supply of affordable housing has shrivelled. The dwindling supply of low cost rental units and rooming houses, the withdrawal of federal support for new social housing programs and the abandonment of social housing by the federal government have all made affordable housing much harder to find.

All these factors have combined to send the numbers of Canadians who are either homeless or who lack adequate affordable housing skyrocketing in the last six years.

Ironically, the current finance minister, the man who has had the ability to address this problem for the last six years and who has done nothing, once promised that he would fix it. Yes, it is hard to believe, but the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard who has been Minister of Finance for the last six years once cared about homelessness in Canada.

In 1990 he co-chaired, along with the member for London North Centre, a Liberal caucus task force on the homeless. He told us that he was concerned about this important social problem. He and his Liberal cronies shuffled all across the country. They met with all the right groups. They said all the right things. They smiled for the cameras. They tried to look concerned. Then they wrote a flowery report. The finance minister said “Trust me. I have the answer. If you elect Liberals we can fix the problem”. We all know what happened. They got elected and promptly and conveniently forgot their promises.

Let us take a look at exactly what the finance minister promised to do for the homeless when he got the power. He said that housing is a fundamental human right. The Liberals promised to discuss housing rights at a first ministers' conference and they promised to enshrine in the Constitution, no less, the right to adequate shelter. What happened? When they got elected they said “Thanks for your vote” and they tossed out their promise.

The finance minister also promised to provide more money for housing to the provinces through the Canada assistance plan, now called the CHST. Guess what? They got elected and instead slashed provincial transfers by 40%. So much for the promises of the member for LaSalle—Émard.

They said we would get a new federal-provincial social program to assist the working poor with housing costs. It never happened.

They promised they would hold a national conference, bringing together federal, provincial and municipal governments to fix the problem. The Liberals still have not set a date.

The finance minister promised a few other things. He assured us that if Canadians elected a Liberal government he would increase funding for housing co-ops and look at new ways of using co-ops. He gave us his word that he would make surplus crown lands available below market value for low income housing. He said he would encourage private-public partnerships to build affordable housing. Get a load of this: he promised that he would eliminate substandard aboriginal housing by the year 2000.

If we were keeping score, so far the finance minister has hit zero out of eight.

I could talk all morning about the failures of the Liberal government, but that would not help solve the problem. Let us talk about some of the things we can do. This is a solvable problem which does not take brain surgeons to fix.

First, let us hold the national conference on the homeless which the finance minister promised nine years ago. I realize that there are those who will roll their eyes and say that we need less talk and more action, but I am not talking about a bunch of politicians sitting around, complaining about how awful a problem this is and that someone should do something about it. What I am proposing is that all three levels of government come together to devise and implement a strategy to address this problem. We need to identify measurable targets with time lines and divide up the task between the three governments with respect to their jurisdictions. And then we need to do it.

Second, the federal government needs to stop the downloading of social housing to the provinces. You cannot fix your house if you have given all your tools away and we cannot fix the housing problems if the Liberals have given up control over social housing. Let us be frank here. The decision to offload the responsibility for social housing to the provinces has been an unqualified disaster.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but if the housing minister had purposefully set out to royally screw up our system for providing affordable housing to Canadians he could not have done a better job than he already has. Half the provinces will not sign the agreement and those are the provinces with the vast majority of social housing units. The provinces that have signed are the smaller provinces which are also cash starved.

Let us not kid ourselves. Look at what happened to job training. The Liberals had this bright idea that they would transfer job training to the provinces. We all know what happened. The provinces gladly accepted the job training money and then had to use that money for hospitals, schools and social services because this same federal government cut those transfer payments by 40%. Now there is no more job training in Canada and the exact same thing will happen with social housing.

We can raise the supply of affordable housing in Canada, but that is only half the answer. We also need to address the income problem, and there are two things we can do. No Canadian who earns $10,000 a year or less should have to pay personal income tax. We need to raise the personal income tax exemption to $10,000, not the $7,900 the Reform member said we should raise it to. This will immediately put cash into the hands of low income Canadians. We need to create more jobs for those on the margins of society. Let us make it less expensive for employers to hire by reducing payroll taxes.

I reiterate that this is a solvable problem. Despite its promises the Liberal government has abandoned the homeless and allowed this problem to get worse. Some people may wonder why the Tories are interested in helping the homeless. Why worry about the homeless? None of them ever voted PC. If we think about what it means to be a Conservative, we will understand why this is important. We believe in family and in our communities. We are the party of nation building and we believe in equality of opportunity. Homelessness strikes at all these core beliefs.

If we can deal effectively with these issues it will solve problems in our families. It will strengthen our communities and our country. It will ensure that Canadians who have been forgotten by the government will once again have access to the same opportunities as everyone else. This is why we need to act now.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently as the Conservatives talked about what it is like to be a Conservative. I remind them that they had nine years in government to fix a lot of the problems and to set the way.

I wanted to talk to the member about the summit he proposed. What happens in non-aboriginal communities is very severe but not as severe as what happens in our aboriginal communities. Should the leaders of our aboriginal communities be invited to participate in such an active dialogue?

[Gilles Bernier, Progressive Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, when I talk about Canada as a country, natives are Canadians also. If there would be such a conference of all leaders, I believe aboriginal leaders should be involved.

I live four kilometres from the second biggest native community in New Brunswick. It is no fun to take a ride on that reserve and see how natives are living. Many have to live and feed their families on $68 a week. It is a disgrace to Canada for them to be living in such conditions.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Madam Speaker, I want to take the opportunity to respond briefly to the some of the comments from members of the NDP.

It find it quite ironic they would point out that we were in government when in fact they had a provincial government for many years and impacted very negligibly on the situation of the poor in the province of Ontario. Similarly there was a very scathing and unwarranted attack on Mr. Clark and his decision to attend the rally on Parliament Hill yesterday. It is ironic particularly in light of the fact that he is in Montreal this morning at another such event aimed at helping poor and homeless people.

Similarly I point out that this day of debate that was initiated by the Progressive Conservative Party comes on the heels of the NDP decision to debate an issue concerning Canada's water, a national resource. I am not diminishing that initiative. It is important, but it was the Progressive Conservative Party that brought this debate forward today in a very non-partisan way.

To bring this kind of politics into it at this level is very destructive. Let us keep the focus on what this is about. It is an issue of trying to help the poor, trying to do something positive about the issues that exist for the homeless. We will not even raise the fact that the Prime Minister chose not to meet with them and would rather be snowboarding in Alberta.

[Gilles Bernier, Progressive Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, I respect the points of my colleague from Nova Scotia. They were really just a comment. He referred to some of the comments the NDP member made earlier. I totally agree with my colleague from Nova Scotia.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat ironic that the motion in essence makes reference to the working poor and yet every time I hear Conservative colleagues speak they talk about the homeless.

I am trying to understand how the motion helps address the homeless issue. The Conservatives are talking about the working poor and about increasing the basic income tax credit to $10,000—it was amended by the Reform Party to something less than that—and the cost of indexing the tax bracket. Collectively they are talking about $28 billion or $30 billion of tax measures over three years.

They keep talking about the homeless in their speeches but their motion makes reference to the tax system. How does the motion assist those individuals who are not working? They are talking about homeless people. They are just making political hay.