Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member for Ajax—Pickering but before I ask it, let me congratulate you, Madam Speaker, on your first day in the chair in the House. We are very honoured by your presence. On behalf of the NDP and I am sure all members of the House, it is very good to see a woman in chair. I would point out there has not been a woman in the position of Speaker, Deputy Speaker, or Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole since 1997. This is long overdue. I hope it will restore some of the gender balance in the House. We are delighted to see you there and congratulate you on your appointment.
In listening to the member for Ajax—Pickering and the whole debate around deficits, the member went back into history with some pride about what his government did in those days in coming out of those deficits. However, let us be very clear that one of the reasons we have a housing crisis in this country is when those cuts were made, it was basically on the backs of poor people. Housing programs were cut.
I wonder if the member would comment on that in terms of history and the fact that we are still suffering from that because we do not have the housing programs that are so desperately needed in Canada.