Since I have four minutes, I have time to speak about social housing.
We have another scandal. CMHC will accumulate almost $4 billion in 2008 while building little affordable housing and behaving more like Bill Gates than Mother Teresa. That is unacceptable.
The most needy families, the elderly and the handicapped must have affordable housing. We must help these individuals. That is one way to help them. When individuals have affordable housing that they can pay for out of their own income, they feel they are worthy of membership in this society, and they act accordingly.
September 25, 2006, was a sad day because the Conservative government announced a surplus of $13 billion and, at the same time, cut $1 billion from the organizations that need it the most, such as women's groups. We know that women are often among the most disadvantaged. There are also literacy groups. It makes no sense to cut the funding of these organizations. What can we do with citizens who are ill-equipped to participate in society? It is unacceptable to manage a country in this way. That is not a Canadian anti-poverty strategy.
In conclusion, the NDP has provided an excellent and sharp analysis. It clearly sees the causes and the consequences. Unfortunately, its conclusions cannot be applied. The Conservative government absolutely must transfer monies to the provinces; it must make financial transfers to the Government of Quebec—which has jurisdiction in this matter and also the competence, in terms of know-how and experience, to continue its own excellent national anti-poverty campaign—until the day Quebeckers have a single labour code and a single strategy to fight poverty.