Human Resources committee  One of the key things that would be very helpful here is to ask poor people what they think should be included in the list. I can tell you for sure that social exclusion or inclusion would be high on their list of items that should be measured. That's the real face of hunger. T

Human Resources committee  I will add to that. I don't think that any particular individual, family, or group makes a decision to be poor. It's based on a set of circumstances, for the most part, that they have little or no control over. Whatever we come up with as a national strategy has to be culturally

Human Resources committee  Certainly there is a high percentage of people who rely on food banks, who are regular clients or regular customers. There is no question. However, increasingly we are seeing people who are using the food bank only periodically. And in many cases these are seniors. They're workin

Human Resources committee  Yes, most definitely, I think it's an opportunity. As I indicated earlier, these are the types of things I think food banks are starting to investigate in a great deal more depth. Certainly we've just completed two research studies of our clientele, one of which was designed to d

Human Resources committee  That's correct. But it's also happening in other food banks. Food banks have been around for about 25 years. We have a very good relationship with the people who use the food banks, and an opportunity, I think, to use food banks to be that portal into other services, and certainl

Human Resources committee  Thanks, Shawn. I think those policy positions are supported broadly by the food bank movement across Canada. I have the pleasure, actually, of operating the food bank in Regina, Saskatchewan. We're a community of about 200,000 people, and in any given month we're serving upwards