Mr. Speaker, there is no question about the ideological orientation that flows out of the quite right-wing movement in the United States. What is interesting is that it was not copied in England by Mrs. Thatcher to any significant degree, perhaps because of a different structure in government there.
However, that right-wing approach by both the members from the Harris government and the people who are part of the Conservative government now, is very consistent ideologically. There is absolutely no question about that. The current Minister of Finance made comments that putting squeegee kids and panhandlers in jail was the simple and easy way to do it. The ideological approach is just that. It is a simplistic one. It is not in keeping with all of the knowledge that we have now. It ignores the reality that our crime rates have gone down.
One of the reasons that our crime rates spiked in Toronto in our youth was, in part, because of the number of economic cuts that were made to social programs. Those who were kids when the Harris government was in are now teenagers and young adults. Their parents and families did not have the ability to take care of them to a degree. They could not get mental health services for them. One sees that and the same pattern is going on with the government.