Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to address some of the issues the member has raised.
The member mentions 1997. It is interesting that she would quote the current Prime Minister from that year, because that was the very year, of course, in which the previous Liberal government was cutting $25 billion out of social programs: money for people who were without homes, money for people who were seeking to go to university, money for people who were trying to get health care, money for the elderly, and money for the disabled.
They were the deepest cuts in Canada's social safety net in the history of the country, so it is ironic that the member would stand up and be outraged at the prospect that the government is not supporting a national anti-poverty strategy when in fact, apparently, the previous Liberal government had a strategy to create poverty and succeeded in doing that to a great degree.
I do not expect the member to agree with this, but I wonder if the member would acknowledge for a moment that her government, the Liberal Party, made the deepest cuts ever in Canadian history to Canada's social safety net, and in doing that really revealed its true stripes when it comes to dealing with the poor, the homeless and the people who need help.