Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is helpful to watch my colleagues point fingers at each other and blame one another for the recent state of affairs, or even the state of the nation, because they are both to blame to some degree.
It may be something of a cliche to say that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but I now have the empirical evidence here that in fact this is true. The average total income for all families might be the best measurement of how we are doing economically.
The average total income for all family units from 1989 to 2004, in quintiles, was: in the lowest quintile, the bottom 20%, the standard of living went down by 9%; in the second lowest quintile, $30,000 a year, it actually dropped by 4%; in the third quintile, the standard of living dropped by 3%. These figures are for 1989 to 2004, so there were some Tory years and some Liberal years. The only quintile that went up is the highest quintile, which went up 23%. These are not left-wing pinko figures; these are statistics. This is the truth. This is what really happened. Canadians are not better off.
For all the equality measures that we talk about and the successive budgets that are designed to make Canadians' lives better for most of us, 60% of us at least, we are dropping and only the rich are getting richer.
I would ask my colleague, does he not agree that equality should be the goal here and elevating the standard of living of all Canadians should be the goal and that something has gone terribly wrong?