Madam Speaker, I listened with some interest to what the member had to say.
One of the major budgetary items of the government in recent years has been the child tax benefit. This is an allocation of upwards of $2 billion to the children of the poorest families in Canada. In my riding poor families looked forward to this with great anticipation. Here at last was a substantial allocation per child to the income of the poorest families in the land.
The federal government has to make particular arrangements with each province when it is flowing money of this type. Even though I suspect the vast majority of people in Canada support the idea of combating child poverty, the arrangements were different in every province.
In my own riding there was great disappointment when it was discovered that because of the arrangement we had to make with the Government of Ontario, the province took away from those low income families which were on social assistance the amount the federal government had added to their incomes. As a result there was no change in their income.
It is true that because of the agreement the federal government made, the moneys the provincial government took away were flowed to programs for low income working families. Nevertheless, there was no change in the income of the impoverished families and children. In Ontario more than 40% of the people on social assistance are children.
The member represents a riding in Alberta. Would he explain to the House what the Government of Alberta's policy was and what his position was with respect to the flowing of the money to low income children through the child tax benefit which this government introduced?