Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to what the member had to say. He mentioned the child tax benefit. I think his comment was that it was a step in the right direction.
I was a great supporter of the initiative by the government, the attempt at the federal level to reach down to children all over the country to try to alleviate child poverty, which is such a serious problem.
It is not a problem but it is a fact of life that the federal government has to deal with each province separately in these matters. In the case of the province of Ontario, the agreement we effectively had was that if the federal government were to allocate large funds to the children of poor families, the Ontario government made the rule that it would take away an equivalent amount of money from people on social assistance. It would apply the money it had saved to the children of poor families but the children of poor working families. It seems this is a serious mistake and a serious fault in logic. Surely we want to help all children in poverty. In some ways we particularly want to help those on social assistance.
My question for the member is from my own information. How does the province of Quebec handle this same matter? Did the province of Quebec have the same condition of taking money away from families on social assistance and applying those moneys to the families of the working poor, or did the province of Quebec proceed to allocate the child tax benefit to all poor children no matter what the source of income of their families?