We're very happy to see the federal government moving forward in a variety of areas on a food policy, on a poverty reduction strategy, on a national housing strategy. These things are all promising, but it's hard to say what's going to happen with the strategy when you're not sure what the content is going to be. The content is going to be very important.
One area in which the right to food in Canada is in my opinion most clearly lacking is among indigenous populations. Since this is a federal table, I think it makes most sense to talk about on-reserve indigenous people, since the federal government has responsibility for many of those communities.
You said that many people using food banks are workers, seniors, and children, which is absolutely true. To add to that, many people using food banks are on welfare, social assistance, or employment assistance—you guys call it something different in every province, depending on where you are—and it's the federal government's practice to match provincial and territorial social assistance rates on reserve.
If you're a single person in Canada and you fall on hard times—you lose your job because of an injury, and maybe you've been working in part-time jobs or temporary work for a couple of years—you may get EI for five or six months, and then what do you have to go to, if you're not well enough to go back to work? You have to go on social assistance, which is not a great place to be, because if you're a single person on social assistance you have to find a way to live on $8,000 a year.