Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and neighbour. I can see the beautiful Mount Maxwell on Salt Spring Island from my house, and that is part of the riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands.
I want to thank her for expanding the conversation we are having tonight on Bill C-4, to talk about how this really is a first step. I think many Canadians are seeing this as a moment in time where we have the ability to reimagine what Canada's full potential can be.
We have heard a lot of discussion today. Part of the discussion has centred on the cost, and I will agree that it has been a significant cost, but I am really glad that in the course of her debate she also started touching on the cost of institutionalized poverty and how that continues to be such a drag on so many of our communities right across this great country. I look, in the Cowichan Valley, at how the opioid crisis is ravaging the downtown core of Duncan right now. That is traced back to institutionalized poverty. These are individuals who have suffered multiple forms of trauma.
Whether it is mental health, physical abuse or the ongoing trauma of everyday lived experiences in poverty, those have real costs to our society. They have costs that the member mentioned in incarceration rates and in our health services.
I just want to ask her to again comment on how investments in things like a guaranteed livable income are actually, in the long run, going to make our country a better place, not only socially and in terms of health, but also economically, to put us on a path for the better.