Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the speech from the throne. I feel it is perhaps one of the most important we have had in this century.
The previous government was able to postpone major decisions, things that needed to be done to bring this country to the point where it could reach its true potential. The people recognized that it had failed them. That is why it has only two members in the House of Commons at the present time. We can never forget that the people want good government. They want responsible government and they want their members of Parliament to give them the Canada that they envision.
We talk about unity. The single most important thing to provide unity in this country is good government. I predict that good government will hold this country together as nothing else will. If we can deliver what is in the speech from the throne, if members of this House can work together, then we can give to the people the government they want. We can also give back to ourselves and this House the prestige and the dignity that so befits this institution. Unfortunately this has not been the case in recent years. Largely it is because members of Parliament brought it on themselves.
We must look at what Canada needs. We need to deal with the debt and the deficit. Certainly when we have an economy that pays 35 cents of every dollar for no other purpose than paying the interest on the debt it must seem to Canadians of low and middle income, and indeed to Canadians who do not have any income, as an obscene use of funding. The people of this country, so many of whom are in need, are not having their needs addressed.
We must deal with the economy, but we must remember that we are here for the people of Canada. As stated in the speech from the throne says, we must look at providing a social system that meets the needs of the nineties. That is not to say we take away what Canadians need. It means that we look at our system, discover its needs and what Canadians need, how with our technological age we can better deliver the system and how we can generate, not only work but enthusiasm for Canadians in this decade.
Taking a life is a very serious thing. I want to say to this House that wasting a life may not seem as serious but it is very serious. That is what is happening to our young people who do not have jobs. They are going from one part-time job to another. In many cases this is the most they have to look forward to. This is a tragedy in the country that the United Nations said was the most beneficial and best country in the world in which to live.
We have a lot to do. We have a lot of self-searching to do. We must reduce the debt and the deficit but we must keep in mind the people of Canada.
In my area in Atlantic Canada there has been an absolute collapse of the ground fishery. All of us in this House are cognizant of the unemployment we suffered before this happened. However, add another 35,000 to 45,000 people who have lost their employment to that serious situation that existed before and it will give some idea of the devastation with which we are faced.
We cannot walk away from that. We cannot walk away from those people and their needs or from the aspirations of the youth of Atlantic Canada. We cannot walk away from the aboriginal people who are looking to this government and to this House of Commons to meet their needs. They have been asking for solutions for many years. We cannot abandon the people of Davis Inlet. We cannot abandon the people of northern Ontario who live in substandard housing.
The aboriginal people are a vital part of this country and we must work together to make sure that their living conditions and their future is something they can look forward to as we hope we will be looking forward to ours.
We cannot ignore the environment. We do not know what caused the devastating downturn in our ground fishery. It may very well be environmental conditions. It could be a melting of the polar ice cap which changed the temperature of the water.
These are the situations with which we are faced today. They have been postponed and then put on to us. However, we in this House cannot postpone them in turn because the time to deal with them is now. There is nowhere else to push these problems. We have to deal with them. We must again look to working on the deficit and the debt and also keep in mind that there are things with which we must deal now.
We must also look to the needs of people today with respect to crime prevention and safety on the streets of this country. This is a major concern.
I want to say that, until one evening, I did not realize how serious the fear was for women in this country who are walking on the streets. On that evening I worked until around 10 p.m. and then I walked down Sparks Street. I tried to cross Elgin Street before the light changed so I started to run. There was a lady ahead of me and she heard these running footsteps behind her. She turned around and I saw a look of stark terror on her face because she knew there was a man behind her who started to run.
The fact is that women in this country get off from work in the dark and take the bus at this time of year. When they get off the bus and every time they pass a tree or a hedge or another building they do not know who is behind those trees, hedges or buildings. Are the elevators safe in which they are going to travel? This has to be addressed.
We have to address the problems of the youth in this country and the youth crime that is so evidently displayed. We must deal with the criminals and the victims. We must start at the very beginning to address and anticipate what is causing crime in this country. The first part is dealing with the criminals and the second part is dealing with prevention. These two go hand in hand. These two are absolutely necessary. It has been said that for every $1 we spend on crime prevention we save $7 in incarceration and expense in our justice system.
These are formidable challenges for members of this House of Commons.
This is our opportunity to show Canadians that although we are faced with difficult decisions we can deal with them because as a unit, members from coast to coast to coast share a concern for Canada and its people.
We cannot talk about people in one region without talking about people in all of Canada. That is because the common thread in this country is the aspirations and present needs of these people and their children. These needs that seem to be unique to one neighbourhood have the same uniqueness in another. That means there is a common bond and there is no uniqueness. There is the common thread of personal safety and aspirations for their children. We all have the same joys and sorrows.
I therefore hope that all the representatives will have the same determination to put this country on the road to prosperity with the vision that Canadians hold for it.