Madam Speaker, the devil is in the details. We need to look at the numbers and break them down a little. During question period, the Prime Minister stated that average wages have risen faster than inflation. However, we need to look at the people at the bottom of the ladder. Being rich in Canada today is not an issue. They can still afford to buy big cars. They can even afford to pay $2 a litre for gas. They can still go to restaurants. The problem is that things are stagnating for the 20% to 25% of people who live from paycheque to paycheque. Those people have not seen an increase in their purchasing power.
This government has been in power for 10 or 11 years. We all agree that the previous prime minister was not much of an economics guy. Even his finance minister ran away, which says a lot. This government keeps doling out benefits and new cheques without acknowledging the problem. It is fine to help people in times of crisis, but when we see that 20% of the people in this country are getting poorer and losing purchasing power and the government simply hands them a cheque, that is hardly a vision for society. It is just making people lose faith in our institutions. That worries me.