Yes. I was just commenting to Ms. Ecker, whom I've had an opportunity to talk with over the years.
We have to look back to 1998, the first year of the child benefit, and what has happened to the labour market. We know about the growth in part-time and precarious work, unfortunately. So while we have made some important progress in reducing poverty with the child benefit.... I need an analogy here: low-income families are getting the cart ahead of the horse, or the horse ahead of the cart. Full-time work is not yet a real pathway out of poverty.
We did some work and basically asked, how are we going to get people above that poverty line? If you look at Europe, you know how they do it? They are better at preventing people falling below the poverty line. But separate from that, if we had a higher minimum wage—let's call it that, though I know the feds are not the major player in that field—closer to about at least $10 an hour, that would bring most single individuals above the poverty line in most communities. But it wouldn't handle the issue of family responsibility for children. And you raise the child benefit.... Just to remind people, we will be at roughly $3,200 a year by next July 2007, so it's not impossible; we're two-thirds of the way there. That would better recognize the full cost of raising a child and would bring you above the poverty line.
Having said all that, though, without some stable, secure housing, it won't make enough of a dent in big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary.