QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Cost of Living
October 23, 2024
Senator Gold, we’ve been trying politely and nicely to ask questions about a serious problem in this country. It’s called hunger; it’s called growing lines in food banks in this country. All we get back are your talking points. You actually have the audacity to call hunger and the growing number of food banks and poverty “food security.”
People are starving in this country, and I encourage you to come with me to our hometown, Montreal, where I was born and raised, and go to Sun Youth and compare the numbers from 20 years ago, 15 years and 5 years ago. I also invite you to get out of your bubble and come with me from the east side of Notre-Dame Street, past the Jacques Cartier Bridge to see all the homeless and — not “food-insecure” people — hungry people who are lining up along the boulevard. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. There are young families who can’t afford rent, food or fuel to take their kids to school. I want you to come with me and explain to them how the policies of this government are working.
Senator Housakos, with all respect, having spent my adult life in Montreal working for the benefit of not only my own community but also the larger community and having supported, funded and volunteered in food kitchens and in food banks, I don’t need your company to know the challenges that people in my city and elsewhere face.
If you object to the term “food insecurity,” I apologize that I’ve used a term that is otherwise acceptable as a way of generally describing the situation. I am not willing to stand here any further and defend my own engagement. However, I am here, again, to insist that the way in which you are raising these important issues does not do justice to the issues —
Thank you, Senator Gold.
Senator Gold, I’m not questioning your personal engagement and how charitable you and your family have been. I know you have been, as have I. I am questioning the results of the government you represent and what the end effect is on people on the street. What I’m saying is that if you think we’re being partisan and political and using slogans, let’s go to Sun Youth. Let’s go to Notre-Dame Street and talk to Canadians: Make your case about your tax, make your case about how great a job your government is doing in dealing with poverty and hunger.
What I have been saying to you, Senator Housakos, clearly to no avail — but I understand that you have a job to do as you see it.
My job is to explain to you and to Canadians that the federal government is doing its part to address a very complicated problem, and it is working in partnership with many other levels of government and civil society to address this issue. It is not the exclusive responsibility of this government, no matter how much you want to bundle every ill in that basket. It’s simply not true, and it is —
Thank you, Senator Gold.
