Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, the debate all week has been about the budget implementation bill and the members opposite have said there is too much in it. One of the biggest parts of the budget implementation bill, in fact almost two-thirds of it, is pay equity legislation. Pay equity eliminates poverty for hundreds and thousands of women across this country.
So for the strategies we have employed, I said in my speech they are not in the poverty reduction strategy per se, they are in all of the work we have been doing since we took office: the national housing strategy, the Canada child benefit, the boost to the GIS, the improvements to the CPP and the pay equity legislation that was just introduced. It goes on and on. There is the $7.5-billion investment in early learning and child care. All of these investments constitute the basket of investments we have made to reduce poverty and it is working as 300,000 kids are out of poverty and 650,000 Canadians have been lifted out of poverty as a direct result, not of the index in the bill but in previous budgets and bills introduced by this government, and I am proud to have made those possible as a member.