Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon to all of our witnesses. To begin, I would like to address my first question to Ms. Donnelly.
Too many negative things are said about teachers, for example that they lack professionalism, only care about their holidays, etc. Yet what I notice today is the opposite. You, as a group of teachers, have arrived here and the first demand that you are making is on behalf of the clientele you serve. I believe that you are displaying a great deal of professionalism. You speak primarily about child poverty, and it is to your credit. I say all of this because I myself worked as an educator with children who experienced developmental problems. I am therefore able to attest to the very strong correlation between social status and wealth, not just of the child but also of the family, and of his or her development potential. I have observed this for a long time. I agree with you entirely in saying that in the education sector, this is a major problem.
However, do you not believe that a serious vicious circle has been at work for a long time? The dynamics are that the fewer resources one has, the poorer one is, the less likely one will succeed in school, and the less one succeeds in school, the more one will remain in poverty. One then has even greater difficulty breaking the vicious circle. How do you perceive this? Do you think there is hope nevertheless?