Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The principle of the motion is one that's pretty interesting indeed, and with the new dollars that we're getting, I do support that we have to have a debate. I feel that we are going to have a debate anyway, once we get these revenue resources into the government budget.
However, I don't feel that I could support the motion at this time in regard to the therefore section allocating specific percentages of dollars into different areas within our government system. When we go through the business plans, we see areas such as deferred maintenance, infrastructure projects, areas that reflect our social conditions in the communities that I feel we could do a one-time-off investment in a lot of areas, specifically in some of the deferred maintenance within our government structure, our government assets, as well as some of our housing units. We do have a homeless issue that we can address. We spoke with the Anti-Poverty Strategy and they said their first main priority is housing. We could address that in a one-time shot. We could look at where our priorities are and where we go with this government.
By divvying up the dollars into four different sections, that puts a limit on where we can start speeding up these projects and becoming more successful and putting action into some of the areas that need it.
I've been in this government for 20 months. I see where a lot of the needs are, and I do agree with the principle of the motion, but I don't think today I can vote in favour of the motion, only because I think there are investments, there are areas of importance that we need to focus on. I don't feel that we should be limiting the dollars that we're going to be getting into areas at this time.
At this time, I will not be supporting the motion based on the therefore clauses and the percentages of dollars. I feel that we're going to be limiting our government, limiting our decisions and where those dollars can be spent, but I do appreciate the efforts put on by Mr. Hawkins and other Members who are supporting this motion.