Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use this opportunity to inform the House, and of course the public as well, that I’ll be voting in favour of this particular motion. I’d like to give credit to Ms. Bisaro for being a champion to this particular issue. She carried it forward in the last term quite strongly and I’d like to give her recognition and certainly her due that she deserves for bringing forward this motion. So I think that should not be overlooked. She’s become the new champion.

---Applause

She’s blushing. May that be noted on the record?

---Laughter

We need more champions like Ms. Bisaro on this particular initiative and I think it’s very important, and we’ve heard today and many people have spoken in favour. If anything, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone speak against this particular motion. I’d be surprised if you could find a single person on the street out here today in the North or anywhere in Canada that would be in support of poverty in any method.

Let me not forget, at the same time, I want to recognize the work that government does try to do in recognition of its hard work on housing, education and even income support. As I may have mentioned earlier here today, income support I feel, in my opinion as well as many others, could be doing more. There’s no doubt that we could be doing more and I think this motion is an expression of that issue. Can we do it all? I’ve spoken many times and said no, we cannot do it all at once. I’m always in favour of us finding certain things we can do. Let’s do them well. Let’s continue the synergy of those types of initiatives or let’s do more. We can do more. Let’s be relentless on this particular issue.

There’s no better commitment to this House. They should hear no better commitment to this House than seeing this motion passed. I wish Cabinet itself would vote in favour of this motion with a free vote, but we know it will never happen. That does not mean, and my colleague here has it right by saying shame, but let it be noted, too, at the same time many of those Members whose hands will fall silent do support poverty initiatives and although they’re not allowed to vote in favour of it today, I do know many of my colleagues support this initiative although they’re in Cabinet. Again, they don’t like creative suggestions from this side of the House, which I find sad.

That said, the Premier did speak and say that they would recognize and hear the concerns and calls from Regular Members.

Again, I’m just going to finish by saying that again I’d like to give credit to Ms. Bisaro for being the champion of anti-poverty and I’d like to see it continued and someday I’d like to hear, maybe before the end of this term, this is one mountain we climbed and captured. Thank you.