Mr. Speaker, the member talked about spending money on priorities. I want to read for him something from a constituent and ask him if he thinks it is a priority. I thought that crime prevention, cutting back on crime, was a priority of the government. This person who wrote, quoted the Prime Minister from Hansard, when he said:
Mr. Speaker, I think the most effective way of dealing with that kind of exaggeration is, once again, simply with the facts. The government will be spending over $80 million a year in the next two years. The government has announced new funding for immigration settlement which will also contribute to literacy programs.
The fact of the matter is that under the previous government, for 13 years, adult illiteracy went up. We are going to ensure that we spend effectively so that it goes down.
Sierra van der Meer from the Yukon Literacy Coalition wrote in response to that:
If the crime rates rise, do we fire police? If the cancer rates rise, do we cut research funds? If adult illiteracy rates went up, don't you think that signals a need for ADDITIONAL funding, not eliminating funding?
The government says when that crime goes up it wants to hire more police and invest more in crime prevention, so why, with illiteracy rates going up, as the Prime Minister just said in his speech, would the government not increase funding for literacy, not decrease it, just like the government is doing is for crime prevention?