He may have written a book on it but I dare say that his book and his hypothesis is not reflective of the literature as a whole and the organizations that are committed to fighting the eradication of poverty.
Reputable organizations, such as Campaign 2000, National Council of Welfare, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg and many other organizations that deal with this problem day in and day out, will tell the member and anyone else who cares to listen that the root causes of poverty are not behavioural, they are structural.
The root causes of poverty cannot be traced to some irresponsible family that broke up or by blaming it on the women, or whatever else the member wants to do. The root causes have to do with the fact that people are in low wage jobs. The root causes of poverty have to do with the fact that people are not making what they need to subsist.
I would suggest that he very carefully read what the National Council of Welfare had to say, and that tomorrow he very carefully read the report that will be released by Campaign 2000 on structural strategies to address child poverty. I believe that will be another study showing that Canada's attempts to reduce poverty by blaming it on individuals, on family arrangements and the make-up of family units is misplaced, and has allowed for tremendous poverty rates to continue when something actually could have been done to correct the problem.
I would suggest that the member look at the data that shows the actual systemic and structural roots of poverty. He should not look at family breakdown but at societal breakdown because the Liberal government refuses to address the systemic and structural causes of poverty.
Unless the government does that, unless it gets down to those fundamental issues, we will not see a break in this disgraceful pattern of child poverty in the neighbourhood of 25%, which is an unbelievable statistic in a country as rich as Canada.
I hope the member across the way will take another look at this issue and try to convince his colleagues that it is time to start taking this matter seriously.