Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to talk today about how our government's budget restraint measures are going to affect our communities. We know that the government is taking steps to maintain, as healthy as possible, the financial situation. We also know that this involves spending cuts. But what we don't know, Mr. Speaker, is exactly how the government will go about this and what impact this will have in our communities.
Prior to this session, about two weeks ago, like many of my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I spent a lot of time visiting people in the communities in my constituency. These people know that governments across the country are cutting back on programs, Mr. Speaker. They want to know how it will affect them. They want some assurance that the government will act responsibly when it comes to cutting spending. They want the government to seriously consider each of their proposed actions in terms of how it will affect communities.
Our hope for the future lies with our communities. In order to survive and flourish, our people need strong communities. We have to focus our efforts on developing strong communities; that is, communities that stand on their own and provide for their people.
Mr. Speaker, I think that this will require some thinking about how we deliver public services. I have heard this referred to as "re-thinking government." We cannot continue to rely on methods of the past. We cannot continue to build huge bureaucratic structures that are supposed to provide people in the communities with what they need. We have to think about how we can help communities to help themselves.
It isn't good enough to filter limited money through a huge bureaucracy. It isn't good enough to have people in the headquarters office telling people in communities how to run their affairs. We need to take a community development approach. We need to restructure our government and its approach to providing community service.
Mr. Speaker, our Finance Minister has delivered his budget address; next week, the federal Finance Minister will present his budget to the country. I will look forward to that and I sincerely hope that each budget will contain at least some good news that is in the form of plans for developing our communities and for restructuring the way public services are delivered. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.