Okay.
I think what I started out by saying is that no matter what this committee should opt to do, we're not going to be successful in ending poverty. That's just a given, unfortunately.
The other part of it is that there is poverty, in part, because there is racism. We have racism, in part, because we have a hegemonic knowledge of what and who people of African origin are supposed to be about. That's informed by what we think we know about them, which may or may not be correct.
If we have a centre for African Canadian history and heritage that helps to put out the real stories—I'm not talking about, necessarily, the Paul Bunyan stories, but real experiences, real incidents that have occurred, real accomplishments that have been made by people of African origin, not just in 1604, but yesterday—that helps to inform people who do the hiring, people who do the admissions, people who make the selections about who should get...because that is also where and how poverty develops and is extended.
It also does something in terms of the person of African origin. I mentioned at the outset that here I am, a person of African origin. My family has been in this country since 1783. I won't tell you at what age I found out that my family, people who look like me, had actually done things because everything around me told me that we had done nothing. And it applies to me, and I'm from this place.
So how does that help somebody who's new to this country, who doesn't have that kind of knowledge that their grandfather...? How do you get that foothold and that sense that there are people who've done things?
They have a negative opinion about people of African origin or people who look like themselves. People who are doing the hiring have a negative image, and that all feeds into not just a poverty of finances but a poverty of experience and understanding.