They are doing a good job.
I am not suggesting that anyone in the House or in the government is a part of that plan or scheme except for the fact that it is such a grandiose, large thing that sometimes we get caught in these things without even knowing it.
This plan involved the educational system in North America where teachers were taught ways to bring down the family and the weaknesses or the reasons why a family should not exist. This is history and this is fact.
The government has given little leadership or no leadership to encourage married couples to stay together. It has given no leadership to encourage couples to grow their families or to provide financial benefits for spouses for instance who choose to stay at home rather than go out and work.
We would like to see the day when our governments would recognize that it is important for a parent to be a parent, for a parent to be able to stay at home and instill within those children the characteristics of love and respect, and go beyond tolerance. We find that hard to do if our families are so stressed and stretched that they have to go to work.
When one family on the block takes that responsibility very seriously and one parent chooses to stay home and raise the children, they are not recognized for that effort. We subsidize the parents next door who choose to rush off early in the morning, dump their kids at some day care, pick them up later in the day, take them back home and then have precious little time to spend with their very own children. We do not take care of families who want to take care of their own children.
Canadian families are crying out for their government to lead and not simply drift along in any direction that the wind may be blowing.
What about the great silent majority of people who are family oriented? What about the people who are struggling from day to day to make a go with families? We are doing little to help them.
The throne speech talks of fiscal success, but in my constituency I hear no talk of fiscal prosperity among struggling families. In fact, a woman came into my office last week with tears literally running to the floor. Because she was unable to care financially for her children her children were whisked away.
As the hon. member down the line mentioned a while ago, I too see seniors lamenting the fact that taxes are owed on their already meagre incomes. It is appalling that we tax these people to the level that we do.
I see people who have no money to buy groceries because the government has confiscated their GST cheques, their disability cheques or their tax refund cheques without any notice. I do not see the fiscal security that we are talking about.
We are on the verge of a spending binge to buy a lacy legacy for the Prime Minister. What do I mean by a lacy legacy? Well, lace looks good and it is very pretty but basically it is only good to look at. My mother once had a lace tablecloth that was pretty but if a glass of ice tea or milk was turned over on that tablecloth, it did not protect the table at all. It was full of holes. That lace tablecloth would not stand up to everyday wear because it was not strong. It sort of reminds me of a certain throne speech. It is pretty, it is lacy but it will never stand up to the everyday wear and tear that we have.
I have much more to say about child protection, especially when this very government, even though it talked about it in the throne speech, voted against it along with the Bloc and the NDP earlier this year. Can we trust the government to do this when it has already voted no? I do not think so.
I would like to move an amendment at this time. I move:
That the amendment be amended by adding after the word “sovereignty” the following:
“reforming Parliament to address the problem of the concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office”.
