Mr. Speaker, surely the member knows something about rising social assistance rates. When he was Premier of Ontario, it became the welfare capital of Canada.
Let me say this. What our initiatives are designed to do is assist unemployed Canadians in obtaining what they want: a job, a paycheque, the dignity of a job, the pride of being economically independent. That is exactly what these measures do. Rather than increasing the social assistance rate, what we hope will happen is that we will be able to move more people into the workforce, where they can contribute, pay taxes and help grow Canada's economy.