Mr. Speaker, the member knows about the manufacturing crisis in Hamilton and southern Ontario where we have seen a loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, which is why most Canadian families are earning less now than they were 20 years ago.
We have had good, family sustaining manufacturing jobs replaced, through the horribly irresponsible policies of the Conservatives and the Liberals before them, by part time jobs at Wal-Mart. Essentially, that means that we have more and more working poor than we have had in this country in the past.
In fact, according to some indications of income and equality, the clock has been turned back to the 1930s when the CCF was born and when we fought to put in place employment insurance, pensions and medical care. Without the CCF and the NDP, Canadians would be much worse off because it is our battles that have advanced the cause and the quality of life of ordinary working families.
As the member notes, there is nothing in this so-called fiscal update that makes any substantive change in the lives of most Canadian working families and nothing that deals with that fundamental falling of income that has taken place over the last 20 years.