Mr. Speaker, I trust the provinces to respond in their jurisdictions as they see fit. What I do not trust is the current government's record on poverty.
The riding I represent has, within an hour's drive, more poor children living in it now than any other time in its history. There are more poor children living within an hour of City Hall in downtown Toronto than there are in the entire Maritimes combined. That is the record of the member's government. That is the record of a government that has walked away from this conversation and walked away from its responsibilities on housing, on child care, on income support.
The member's government, the government opposite, has had a deplorable record on dealing with poverty. Perhaps it is precisely because of the government's response to poverty that we have to step up and provide some leadership. That is why we will be supporting this bill, because this bill starts to speak to one of the pressing issues of our day, which is income inequality, and it has become decidedly worse, cruelly worse and unfairly worse under the leadership of the party across the aisle. The reason we have to provide this leadership is that, quite clearly, industries under federal regulation have changed and it is time for a new approach. We cannot be stuck in the past if we are trying to deal with the future.