Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. Most of my discussion tonight was about my concern for families and the tax disincentives. For example, the court decision I quoted was that in the past somehow married couples were not treated the same as couples who decided to live together. That is what the court ruling referred to.

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, tonight I am going to speak about a subject that is dear to everyone's heart and in particular to our electorate in this country. When I was running for office I found, as I am sure many members did, that one of the biggest considerations and concerns of Canadians was what was going to happen to their health care.

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and thank the member for the encouragement. He is taking quite a leap here from my discussion of family into the constitutional swamp, as we have talked about before, of trying to relate that somehow to Quebec and its relationship to Canada.

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed listening to the hon. member and I would like to ask a simple, straightforward question. Our country continues to plunge into debt, and it appears that before we can wrestle the deficit out of existence we could hit $650 billion of indebtedness. As each year goes by, we lose a little more of our ability to help the poor, whether it is the needy refugees coming into our country or any other poor within our society.

Social Security System  Then I will simply follow your instructions and comment on this debate and on the position taken by our party and by the government. Obviously, we would like our party and the Reform Party to reach a consensus on the big issue of the allocation of public funds. We know that Ottawa collects roughly $28 billion in taxes from Quebec each year and we would like to know how this money is redistributed.

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked if there were anyone over here who could give him a radical new idea to support the millions of children who are living in poverty. This is a serious question.

Social Security System  What can we do to insure that the people who have children, particularly the fathers, support those children?

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member for Winnipeg South. I would like to make a few comments on his speech. Obviously there are political disagreements in terms of philosophies in the House, but I want to ask the member a couple of questions about some of the things he said in his 10-minute usage of time.

Social Security System  Speaker, I look forward to an opportunity to debate this question at great length with the member for Beaver River and other members of her party in the House. The problem is twofold. Frankly I hear very simplistic things coming out of the Reform Party. I hear this constant noise about this being like a business; that if we are going to run it like a business and we have no money, we should cut off things, fire employees or lay people off, downsize.

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, first I will comment on the health forum. It is not a new role that we are looking at in relation to gathering data on health problems or situations. In my address I said that there were already a great number of people out there who have seen the deficiency in the economic situation, have already been conducting studies on it and have been offering recommendations either at a federal or provincial level.

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his comments on my first speech. I would also like to say that possibly we are saying the same thing but using different words. I agree with him that today and in the past the emphasis has been on men in health care. I personally can recall that the average height of a human being when I was studying was that of the average man and at that time he was considered to be 5 feet, 7 inches tall.

Social Security System  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the comments that have just been made. I also appreciate the atmosphere that exists in this House at the present time. It is non-confrontational and we are working together. We do not have all the solutions, but I think we can work together toward some of them.

Social Security System  It is a privilege and a great honour to stand and address the House. Again I would like to thank the citizens of Surrey North for providing me with this opportunity. Also, Mr. Speaker, I offer my congratulations to you on your successful appointment to the position of Deputy Speaker in the House of Commons.

Social Security System  Madam Speaker, I would like to advise the House that pursuant to Standing Order 43, our speakers on this motion will be dividing their time in half.

Social Security System  Madam Speaker, I too remember the NEED program. As the hon. member mentioned, there definitely is reason to resurrect some of the programs that worked. But if we are going to resurrect and not reinvent the wheel, we had better go back to the marketplace and discuss with people who actually use the program what happened as a direct result of the use of some of these programs.