Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the hon. Leader of the Opposition's story about living at home during university. It is a blessing to come from a good family, to be able to look after your children, care for your family, and to have that privilege. However, not all families have that opportunity.
There are many families in Canada who simply cannot seem to get ahead. For instance, indigenous children under the age of 14 make up 7.7% of all children in Canada, but they represent more than half of all children in foster care. This means that indigenous children have a much higher chance of being separated from their families, communities, and cultures, and this needs to change.
In Winnipeg alone, a newborn is seized every day. A newborn is taken from her parents every day and without even proof sometimes of whether it is a good or a bad parent. There are only allegations of abuse, for instance, in about 13% of the cases when children are seized in Manitoba, meaning that 87% of the children who are taken are just simply too poor.
The government in this budget has committed $1.4 billion of new funding, for six years starting in 2017, to conform with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
If the hon. Leader of the Opposition had to balance the budget, how would he balance that budget? Where would you cut? Where would you take out? Would it be on the backs of indigenous people? Would it be on the backs of veterans? How do you make those decisions, because we have given an awful lot of funding to many of these groups that depend on this.