Mr. Speaker, there are actually a significant number of examples of problems, mistakes and bad experiences where moving public sector activity into the private sector is concerned.
I spoke earlier about my experience at the provincial level, living for eight years under the reign of Mike Harris and ultimately Ernie Eves in Ontario, and the effort they made to turn the delivery of services to the most at risk, vulnerable and marginalized of our citizens over to the private sector. That had a devastating impact on the lives of thousands and thousands of families across this country. It was under Mike Harris and the shift from delivering social services to at risk, vulnerable and marginalized families and individuals that we saw the growth of homelessness and street people in the city of Toronto.
When I got to Toronto, we would see the odd homeless individual living on the street. Most of them were facing other challenges, a lot of them in the mental health area. However, it was only after Mike Harris took over in 1995 when he began to shift the delivery of government public services over to the private sector that we began to see the real increase. More and more people, whole families, were living on the street.
This whole idea that somehow the discipline of the private sector will resolve all of our problems and will take us down a road that will always be good for all of us needs to be challenged.