The Minister of Finance said in 1990: “Only the federal government has the resources to provide leadership on this crucial social issue”. My friend should be embarrassed for suggesting that it is up to the provinces when her own Minister of Finance said quite the opposite.
There is much to talk about in terms of this budget. At the end of his budget speech the Minister of Finance quoted Sir Wilfrid Laurier saying that the 20th century belonged to Canada. We are entering the 21st century. What a terrible way to be exiting the 20th century with one and a half million kids living in poverty with the government doing nothing to alleviate it. There are hundreds of thousands of homeless people on the streets yet the government does nothing. When we walk out of here today we can see on every main corner in the city of Ottawa, the nation's capital, people begging with caps in hand, and the government does nothing about it.
One thing symbolizes this budget. We acknowledge in this House that parents dependent on social assistance and attempting and struggling to raise families are not getting a single cent of benefit from this budget while millionaires walk away with at least $8,000 in extra cash. It means that the gap between those who have and have not in this country continues to widen, thanks to this budget.