Mr. Speaker, I think I would need your permission to go on for another 20 minutes to answer these three questions.
I believe a poverty commissioner is a valid request and a desirable measure. We know that in 1989, all members in this House unanimously expressed the desire to see a reduction in child poverty. Unfortunately, the number of children in poverty went up instead of down. Right now, we hear about the scandal with the way grants are distributed and the programs approved at the Department of Human Resources Development and it raises questions about government management.
What I am asking for, for better effectiveness in the application of programs and in their impact on communities, is for a poverty commissioner. He could keep track of successive governments—right now we have a Liberal government but there could be another government—to know how the big bureaucratic machine implements the measures adopted by the government.
We know that some measures taken by the government do not have the desired impact on society. We need only look at the scandal at the Department of Human Resources Development. However, the same party was at the heart of another scandal in 1984. At that time, there was an R and D tax credit for companies. In the end, many billions went because of money given to numbered companies. Companies were disappearing, but some of them had never done any research and development.
A real poverty commissioner could track all the policies of the federal government on poverty. This afternoon, we will hear a budget speech. There will probably be applause. But we should track every measure the government will implement this afternoon to see if this speech will really contribute to reducing poverty.
Today, every member of the Bloc Quebecois is wearing a heart at the request of associations in our constituencies, which want the Canada health and social transfer to be restored to the provinces, the unemployedto get—