Karen Vecchio

[International Trade, November 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals said that the Prime Minister would not attend a new NAFTA signing ceremony with Donald Trump if the steel and aluminum tariffs were still in place.

Workers in our steel and aluminum sectors have been greatly affected by these tariffs, and yet we saw the Prime Minister with Donald Trump this morning, signing this deal.

Can the Liberals confirm that the tariffs have been removed?

[Adoption Awareness Month, November 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the end of Adoption Awareness Month. Throughout this month, we take special notice of adoptive families and community partners across Canada and celebrate the joys and challenges that exist for families formed by adoption.

For me, adoption is a topic that is close to home. My husband, Mike, was adopted at birth. Last week, I had an opportunity to meet with Adopt4Life—Ontario's Adoptive Parents Association, who were in Ottawa along with the Adoption Council of Canada, and faculty and students from the University of Western Ontario to raise awareness about how Canada can better support families formed by adoption and how adoption has changed over the years.

We spoke about the importance of attachment between children and their parents in families formed by adoption. Attachment is a crucial aspect of human development. This is often disrupted for kids in child welfare.

I encourage MPs to support policies that help adoptive parents to strengthen these bonds and enable their children to thrive.

[Poverty Reduction Act, November 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is really important to make smart investments. Once again, I really applaud the NDP member. She has done fantastic work and shows all of her compassion.

It is important to invest. Let me just give a snapshot of how the government is investing. Last week it was reported that $500,000 was used to create a logo and branding for poverty reduction. Is that the way we are going to spend our money? It definitely is the way the Liberal government spends money, but is that what is best for Canadians? Is a $500,000 bill the proper way to do this?

We need smart investments, and that is something the government cannot do.

[Poverty Reduction Act, November 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the great work the parliamentary secretary has done.

When we have discussions, though, there cannot always be a right or wrong answer. I am saying with regard to this policy that we have experts on the ground who are saying that we should not deviate from Housing First. Are there flaws? There are some flaws. However, the member is making it out to be the worst program ever, saying how it did not work well. I would really question that.

If Conservatives had never talked about housing, the homelessness partnering strategy would not have been supported. Housing First initiative would never have been put forward. These are policies that the Conservative government put forward. These are the policies that we worked on.

The member can talk about Conservatives being absent on housing, but we were there and are just not sitting here flaunting and applauding things that we have not actually done.

[Poverty Reduction Act, November 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on Bill C-87, an act respecting the reduction of poverty, and Canada's first poverty reduction strategy. However, it is a six-page document, and so there is not a lot there.

This poverty reduction strategy is truly a re-announcement of 87 programs either that the government put into place or modified or that had been around for decades. Let us not kid ourselves when we talk about this poverty reduction strategy. It is a re-announcement of things that have happened since October 2015. That is all we are seeing here.

The Liberals talk about the fact that the bill would put in a metric, and the member for Spadina—Fort York talked about using this new measurement. I would like to let him and all Canadians know that this measurement has been used for decades. I applaud the Liberals for actually adopting it as the official measurement, but please do not believe that this was something they concocted and created. This measurement was used by the human resources and skills development department for years.

There are four key things that I will focus on.

I will begin with the current poverty rate. Last week, we had the financial update from our finance minister, and I read the comments from Canadians on Twitter and Facebook. They will support a government that runs a deficit if they believe that the money is being spent well and where it is needed. One the biggest challenges I see here is that we have a government that has announced an $80 billion deficit in its mandate. However, if we look at what it has spent and what the actual statistics are showing, they are two absolutely different stories.

I will start with what the parliamentary secretary said moments ago, that the poverty reduction strategy started the day the Liberals took office. The facts I am going to give members today will compare data from 2014, the last year of the Harper Conservative government, with 2016 data, which is a full year of the current government, noting that it was working on poverty from October 19, 2015. The numbers show that the level of poverty for all persons remained at 13%. Therefore, the data shows that between 2014 and 2016, it was 13% with no variation in those numbers whatsoever. However, there is an $80 billion deficit.

For persons under the age of 18, the Liberals talk about the Canada child benefit, but we have seen a half percentage decrease based on this data, and we see an $80 billion deficit. For persons between the ages of 18 and 64, there have been very minor, insignificant changes. We see a change of about 1%. However the statistic for seniors really scares me, and will scare many members of my caucus, especially since we really focused on seniors and pushed to make sure we had a seniors minister. We thought the Liberals were not focusing on seniors, and we were right. We have now seen a 2% increase between 2014 and 2016 of people over the age of 65 when it comes to poverty. We also see an $80 billion deficit. What I am trying to show here relates to the Liberals' line that they are spending the money on the people who need it.

I am the first one to want to help somebody, but these numbers are not showing any changes. Instead, we are seeing deficit spending and we are not getting the results from it. That is one of the biggest challenges I see here. How can we support something when we are seeing no difference? This comes back to the metrics in the six-page bill, and they are not there. The targets are not there.

We recognize that the government is collecting data, and I will share some information.

I have had the opportunity as the shadow minister for families, children and social development to go across Canada and speak to people on the ground. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Hamilton at the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. One of the biggest discussions there was on the point in time count. We wanted to compare the 2016 and 2018 data. When this came out in 2016, I thought it was really important to collect that data. We need to know what is leading to homelessness. We need to know how many are homeless. If we have these numbers, we can know if we have reduced it or if it has increased. I am okay with that.

However, people on the ground are coming out and saying that they were told to do one thing in 2016, and with the point in time count, they were told not to go to certain areas. I actually heard this from people who were doing point in time counts. They were told not to go to those areas because poverty was flourishing, those streets had people who were homeless and they did not want those people in the count.

This comes down to the people working for the Government of Canada, who were telling them not to go into those areas where poverty had increased.

I also have heard from the people in Kelowna. The trip to Kelowna was really interesting, and I sat and spoke to people at OneSky. They are doing absolutely fantastic work. However, they shared with me the concern that they did the point in time counts in 2016 and 2018, and they also did a name list, something that is really a wonderful measurement on this that we can talk more about in another discussion. They said that the factors they got in 2016 and 2018, through the point in time count endorsed by the government, was in a 24-hour window. Let us say that John, who has been on that street corner for 364 days asking for assistance, happens to not be on that corner that day. His name does not count because he is not there in that 24-hour period.

What we see is that the counts are being done in a very micro amount of time. When the same organizations from Kelowna are going out and doing a name count, we see that those numbers actually almost quadruple. They actually are saying that their point in time count will show less than 100, but when they did a name count of people out on the streets, they are talking about 400 people. That is a huge significant difference.

If we are going to talk about metrics, let us make sure we are getting our metrics straight and let us be sure the measurements we are using are the same from one year to another year and not putting some challenges there so that we get different results.

One thing that I also heard that was really important was, “You keep on counting us but we still don't have a home”. This is something that I want to bring to the attention of the minister, the parliamentary secretary and the government. It is lovely to collect this data; however, the people who are being asked for this data want to start seeing results. They are tired of doing these things and not seeing anything at the end of the day.

I now want to switch the page and talk about the national housing strategy. We have had some private members' bills that have come through, so we have had an opportunity to talk about housing in those areas. Let us actually talk about what the national housing strategy does.

Over one-third of this announcement is not new money. It is money that we saw in the 2016 and 2017 budgets. Therefore, when we talk about the national housing strategy, we are looking at old money and we are looking at some new money. A substantial portion requires provincial money. When the Liberal government talks about $40 billion, it is not $40 coming from the Canadian government, but funding that has to be matched. We have to make sure that those provincial governments are going to be at the table. Agreements have been signed, and kudos on that. However, we also have to make sure that these are agreements that the provinces are not being forced to make.

One of my biggest concerns is that the need for housing is now. We have heard our NDP colleagues talk about the need for housing. I recognize that we still see these challenges. We know that shelter use in Canada has actually increased under the government. It has not decreased. It has increased. More people are needing shelters.

What we look at is the strategy that goes from 2016 and then up to about 2029. We have the $40 billion for 10 years. We see that it is end-loaded. The emergency is today. The emergency is not 10 years from now. Are we saying that for a person who has lived on the streets for two years, we will add 12, and that person will get their money then? We also have to look at that. Some of my biggest concerns are around throwing money at things without really solving the problem.

Right now at the status of women committee, we are studying shelters. We have had some fantastic witnesses who have come in. If we are looking at where the housing issues are; we have to look at the actual housing continuum; we have to look at the shelters, we have to look at the subsidized housing; we have to look at affordable housing and supportive housing. Then we also have to look at what is actually attainable for Canadians.

One of the biggest challenges we are seeing, which is something that the government has not addressed, is that we see people being kept in shelters because there is no room to move out of that continuum. Here is just a little news alert: Every day somebody is looking for a shelter across Canada. There are always people looking for help, whether it is women leaving abusive relationships or people who just cannot financially support themselves and their housing. They are looking for places. However, the continuum of housing is broken and the government continues to allow it to be broken and continues to expand the problem. When somebody goes to look for affordable housing, there are problems. One example is a young woman I know of who moved into a place in June, into second stage housing. She is stuck in that second stage housing because there is no housing available. The housing markets are not there.

Therefore, when we look at the national housing strategy we can talk about affordable, but what is the plan to actually get affordable housing built? What is the plan to break it down and make sure that we are working with all our communities, from the developers and the landowners to the people who are actually out there with the hammers? We have seen huge gaps, and the government is not addressing them.

We talk about this all the time, but there are a few quotes that I want to share with the House. The reality check is here.

CBC News posted on June 13, 2018, “Between 2014 and 2017, chronic homelessness in the city climbed by 21 per cent, while the use of emergency shelters rose by 16 per cent.” Under the Liberal government the city of Ottawa has seen an increase in chronic homelessness of 21%. How is the government addressing that?

From the same source, here is a second quote about a report entitled,“Homelessness in Ottawa: A Roadmap for Change”. This report examines how the city's 10-year plan is faring and offers suggestions on how to turn the tide. “While the report contains some good news—577 people were able to move into their homes since 2015, thanks to the city's use of Housing First model—Deans acknowledges Ottawa is not trending in the right direction.”

We are talking about a document that was just put out that looked at housing from 2014 to 2017. The people from Ottawa are saying we are not going in the right direction, and this is under the Liberal government.

I also want to share a few quotes that talk about Housing First.

The Liberal government talks about housing first, and let us be honest: the reason it does not like it is that the Conservatives put it in. It is that simple. We have seen many of our pieces of legislation that were done between 2006 and 2015 repealed, only because they were Conservative policy.

I want to read a few items, and these are really important and critical points.

From the Mental Health Commission's final report:

Over the two-year period after participants entered the study, every $10 invested in HF services resulted in an average savings of $9.60 for high needs.... Significant cost savings were realized for the 10 per cent of participants who had the highest costs at study entry. For this group, the intervention cost was $19,582 per person per year on average. Over the two-year period following study entry, every $10 invested in HF services resulted in an average savings of $21.72.

From the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, Tim Richter has spoken on this. People working in housing across Canada will understand who he is. I recognize that the parliamentary secretary knows him as well. He has indicated that we won't prevent and reduce chronic homelessness in Canada without Housing First. Removing the Housing First investment target could be risky because communities may drift away from the Housing First investment, harming efforts to reduce homelessness.

Finally, the last quote is from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, which:

strongly objects to the government policy decision to remove the (65%) Housing First investment target.... Reaching Home leaves open the door for federal funding to be diverted toward homelessness interventions that are neither evidence-based nor best practice.

I just wanted to bring up that information, because we can sit here and talk about what a great deal the government is doing on the national housing strategy, and applaud, and all of these kinds of things, but we have people on the ground who face homelessness every day, who face clients every day, and these are the reports we are getting back.

Last night I appeared on a panel on CTV. We were talking about the emerging crisis that we have with immigration and the costs. The PBO indicated that over the two-year period from July 2017 to March 2019, if the government stays on track, it will spend $1.1 billion.

We really need to concentrate on the fact that the government has no true policies for the people who come into this country and does not have a plan on how we are going to assist these new immigrants.

Here is a quote from Toronto, which has seen a spike in refugee claimants and shelters this year, with average nightly numbers climbing to 3,191 this month, more than six times the level of two years ago.

Toronto Mayor John Tory has issued increasingly urgent calls for additional funding from federal and provincial governments. He says 41% of those in the city's already-strained shelter system are now refugee claimants. By November, this year is projected to hit 54%. As a result, for the first time the city is temporarily housing people in student residences at two community colleges, spaces that are filling up fast.

With yesterday's PBO report, we recognize that the cost of new immigrants into this country is basically on average what a minimum wage worker would make over the course of one year. That is what the Liberal government is spending because it does not have a plan. I wish it would start listening to what Canadians are saying.

I want to turn now to a positive note. The social finance fund was mentioned in the mini budget last week. Although it was supposed to be an economic statement, we saw a heck of a lot of spending included in it. The fall economic statement would make available $755 million on a cash basis over the next 10 years to establish a social finance fund, with an additional $50 million over two years in an investment and readiness stream. This is something our government started studying in 2011 and 2013. In 2015, it was in our federal budget. Therefore, this is something the Conservatives do believe in. However, part of the problem I have with this is where is the Liberal government going to find this money? We are already talking about an $80 billion dollar deficit, and now we are talking about what we are going to do next. That is one of my concerns.

We also have to remind ourselves that with 10-year programs we have to see where that money is being spent. If we are talking about social programs being financed through this social finance fund to help meet urgent needs, including homelessness, this money is once again back loaded and does not appear for the first two years in this mandate. That is really important. This is money that would be spent after the 2019 election. Like everything else the government proposes, it would be spent after the election so that the government can include it in its platform for its four-year mandate. These are huge concerns to me as well.

The child benefit is something the Liberals constantly talk about. They say that the Canada child benefit has lifted 300,000 children out of poverty. Anything that we can do to help our children, we will always support, but we also have to make sure that what government is doing is on the right track. Part of my concern is that if the Liberals are saying they are doing all of these things and we see less than half a per cent decrease in child poverty, we have a problem.

The current government is truly on a poor track. It has a poor track record, and its program performance is horrendous. We support measures that purport to reduce poverty and provide a fulsome approach. We oppose the carbon tax because we know it will be one more cost for these low-income people. The government is coming out with one of its policies, and it is not a climate change policy. It is an economic and social engineering policy. There is nothing there that says what will happen. I cannot take a supposed train that would not go from my house to my workplace. It does not exist. Like any other consumer, I will be in my automobile, just like the many other Canadians who do not have public transit. We will be in our automobiles and will be gassing up and paying 11 cents more a litre because of the government. I applaud the Government of Ontario for banning this ridiculous carbon tax.

We have something that has come out with 87 different programs in it. In the last few months, we have seen job losses: at GM this week, 2,800 jobs have been lost; at Bombardier, 5,000 jobs have been lost; and we cannot forget about the people in Alberta. One hundred and ten thousand jobs in Alberta have been lost because of the Prime Minister and Bill C-69 and because the ridiculous policies I have cited. The Liberals look at what they want, but they do not look at what Canadians want and need, and they need jobs.

On this entire poverty reduction strategy, how come we are not asking about how we can stay competitive in Canada, how we can retain jobs here in Canada and how we can create jobs in Canada? We do not see that discussed in Bill C-87. We know there are many ways of looking at poverty, and there are many different pillars. One of the pillars is a strong fiscal position and an economy that is creating jobs. We do not see job creation. If we saw job creation we would not have 110,000 people in Alberta losing their jobs. If the government were worried about poverty reduction it would be putting in place initiatives that keep people working in Canada and not putting them in the employment insurance program. Employment insurance is not the option Canadian workers are looking for. They are looking to go to work every day. They are looking at putting bread and butter on the table for their families. Their job is to go out there and get a job as a family member to be able to do that for their families.

Bill C-87 is gutless. It is worse than what Seinfeld would say. It is “filled with nothing.” If they are really talking about helping people out of poverty, where are the guts?

[Poverty Reduction Act, November 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful that the Conservative caucus is being called on a point of order and yet we just saw the Liberal parliamentary secretary do the exact thing. Therefore, I have a point of order on using props.

[Automotive Industry, November 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday night, I stood in the House during the emergency debate to discuss the announcement that the GM plant in Oshawa was closing. Some 2,800 unionized and non-unionized workers will lose their jobs because of this decision.

The cities of St. Thomas and London, the Township of Southwold and the County of Elgin met a similar fate with the closure of the St. Thomas assembly plant in Talbotville when Ford announced that it was closing. Then the community was hit once again when the Sterling truck plant announced it would be closing its doors and moving out of Canada.

Families across the region were impacted by these job losses. Auto haulers, cafeteria employees, secondary suppliers, all of these companies and workers fell victim to these closures. We need to support the families of Oshawa by all levels of government working together.

I urge the government to work with all federal party members to find a solution for the workers and families in the Oshawa region.

[General Motors Plant Closure, November 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, the consumer is the one who is going to choose. I know that I should not eat chocolate bars, but I eat chocolate bars. I will always be a chocolate fiend.

My husband worked in the auto sector for a number of years. Not only did he work at the Sterling plant where his job was lost, but he also worked for Elgin Chrysler in the city of St. Thomas. It is interesting, because 10 years ago we would have seen a lot of sedans and small family vehicles. Now that entire lot is filled with RAM Dodge trucks, Jeep Cherokees. I have a Jeep Compass. It is looking at new technologies, but we have to recognize that the consumers are going to buy what they want, and the biggest selling vehicle is the Dodge RAM.

We can try to push things upon people, but at the end of the day, consumers are going to be the ones who choose. We always have to remember that as well.

[General Motors Plant Closure, November 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the member is saying about the labour, but we need to look at this as the entire pie. In order for our businesses to be successful, it has to be the labour, it has to be the business owners, it has to be the consultants and it has to be consumers.

Business is about everybody. A business is about the entire piece of the pie. When we make something, we need a consumer. We need all of that together. The labour is a very important part of this, but I have to always recognize that we have to ensure we focus our needs on everything, and that includes everybody from the beginning of the supply chain to the end of the supply chain.

[General Motors Plant Closure, November 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could give everybody great hope. I am from the city of St. Thomas where, back on January 23, 2006, the day of the federal election, Ford Motor Company announced that it would be reducing down to one shift. On October 14, 2008, our next federal election, the Sterling truck plant announced that very day that it was closing. Therefore, I come from a city and region that has felt this economic impact so greatly, and that is what I want to focus on. We do need hope here, but we also have to have some reality checks. Tonight is going to be a difficult debate. I have seen so many families who have gone through this.

As I have always mention in this House, I was the proud assistant of Joe Preston, the member of Parliament from 2004 to 2015, and that gave me the opportunity to work with so many individuals who had worked at the Ford Motor Company and the Sterling truck plant. These were very difficult times. People were coming in and saying they had lost their jobs. They usually blamed it on the government, which I understand because, at the end of the day, there is some part that the government has to play. That is why, when we have talked about competitiveness and about tariffs, all of those pieces are part of the puzzle and we cannot forget that.

Back in 2006 when it was announced, it was a very difficult day.

In 1967, the Ford Motor Company came to the city of St. Thomas and people leaving high school were able to get fantastic-paying jobs. Students were able to pay for their college and university, just based on their summer jobs there. People were able to work Fridays and Saturdays for 12-hour shifts and, once again, pay for their university and college. There were so many opportunities, and all of those opportunities disappeared when the Ford Motor Company disappeared.

It was the same thing with the Sterling truck plant. In 2008, it announced that it was leaving. As I said, it was the federal election day. It seemed to always happen to Joe and me as we were working on these federal elections. We just did not know what was going to happen. In 2011 and 2015, when we escaped with no terrible announcements, we were very pleased.

We have to recognize it is not just the 2,800 jobs, but it is also all of those secondary and tertiary jobs that really matter. It is much greater than the 2,500 unionized staff and the 300 non-unionized staff. That is why I want to speak about the challenges we saw in St. Thomas as well.

The day that the Ford plant closed in St. Thomas, it was noted in the Financial Post, “Making matters worse is that a number of Ford’s suppliers in the area, including Lear Seating, have also announced they will be closing their own doors as a result of the plant’s demise.”

We still have about one in four jobs in St. Thomas that are tied to manufacturing, and many of those are still in the automotive parts. In that year, we lost Lear and Schulman. Schulman did not deal with the fabrications per se, but with the plastics that had to do with the steering wheels. We lost people who worked in the cafeteria, who prepared over 4,000 meals a day. Those were great jobs and people knew they could go to work and get paid, but we lost them. One other huge part of our industry that was really impacted was Auto Holloway. I remember going to school with many kids whose parents worked at Auto Holloway. It had great-paying jobs. My brother worked for the company, and when the Ford Motor Company left, that job was gone as well.

We are not just talking about the cars once they are manufactured and shipped off; we are talking about the tires, the engines and all of the different parts of the cars that are brought in by CN Rail or CP or by the 400 road series. All of these jobs are lost as well. Therefore, today as we are talking about Oshawa and about the 2,800 jobs, we have to recognize all of the spinoff effects and impacts and ripple effects that this is going to have on that community.

It is important for the government to step up. I am hoping that during this emergency debate the Liberals will step up and work with the opposition parties that asked for this emergency debate. We need to make sure it is not just about employment insurance, but that it is about what we can do next. Employment insurance is a band-aid solution. Although Service Canada will set up in special areas where people will work with the workers, that has to be seen as a short-term fix. Employment insurance is only meant to get people through the rough spots.

This is where I really encourage the government to get a plan for how we can keep this company here in Oshawa and keep people working today, or how, in the future, the government can make sure that these jobs come back.

St. Thomas is in the county of Elgin. We are lumped in with the city of London when it comes to our unemployment rates. During the global economic downturn, we were able to separate that information. In the county of Elgin, in the city of St. Thomas, we were at about a 15% unemployment rate. We had growing poverty, growing job losses, and people were losing their homes.

I had the opportunity to work with many of these people. There were a lot of crying parents. That year our office bought Christmas presents for families we had met. This is what the people of Oshawa are going to go through, not this Christmas but perhaps next Christmas. It is really important that the government is listening, and asking, “How can we do things better?”

One of the things I have always heard is, “Our job as government is to set the field. It is to create the field and create all the opportunities for competitiveness.” This is really important. Our Conservative caucus is saying today that competitiveness has left the building.

It is really important that we recognize that tariffs are having an impact on many of our companies. We can talk about the CPP, about all of the new costs to business. We are seeing this across the country. I truly hope that the government recognizes that until it changes the manner in which it is doing business, this may be the first but it may not be the last. We have to be on top of that.

We also need to talk about labour and talent. We recognize that there are great workers who have worked there. We have talked about some of the products that have been taken off the line. I am sure many of the people in this room tonight and many of the viewers watching at 9:55 p.m. on a Monday evening can remember the Crown Victoria. It is the cop car that we see across Canada. For many years, people in St. Thomas could sit there and say, “That's my car. That's my car. That's my car.” Every time I see a Crown Vic, I know it came off the line in St. Thomas, Ontario.

I have the feeling that the people who work in Oshawa are feeling the exact same way. Many individuals take great pride in the work that they bring forward. Today, as our member for Carleton mentioned, we have to remember the children and the families that are being impacted.

I am going to go back to another conversation I had. Many years ago, we did a lot of round tables. We always dealt with manufacturing. As I indicated, one in four jobs in the city of St. Thomas are with manufacturing. One of the biggest things that one of our companies said was that if they could move today, they would, but they could not, they were here, and they had everything set up.

One of the biggest issues for him was the cost of hydro. That is something the Province of Ontario is really working on, and I am really proud of the work that they have done following this last administration's failures.

We also have to understand employment costs. These are really big factors as well. It is really important. I understand that this is a balance between labour rights and family, but we also have to look at the work in the companies to make sure that they are productive. We have to find that balance.

I do not know if the government is consulting enough to make sure that we are actually on the right path all the time. Those are some great concerns of mine.

My final message is that we do have to stay positive. This is a very difficult situation that many of our workers are going through. They are going to be left without jobs. They are going to be left with mortgage payments and bill payments that do not cease just because they have lost their jobs. If they are like the government, they will have credit card bills to pay as well.

There are many things that we need to think about. We need to come up with a plan. I am not saying I am the right person for the plan, but there are 338 members of Parliament who should care enough about Canada and care enough about our economy that, together, we can come up with a non-partisan plan that will keep these people working in Oshawa, and that will keep this country the great country it is.