Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for coming forward and appearing before us.
I was a little bit disappointed until I heard the presentation from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, because the reason we came here was to feel what you guys are feeling. I'm an urban MP from Montreal. I've heard about the problems in the north, but I haven't really seen it. I've been pushing for this committee to come up here. I've been a member for about four to five years now. We've heard stories, and we're going to do some site visits. I don't think we're going to probably spend enough time. I think the only person around the table who could probably feel what you guys are feeling is Dennis, who is a member of Parliament here.
I don't want to put a downer on things, but some of the questions I had are going to change now that Mr. Des Lauriers made his presentation. I'm going to try to understand. In the brief there were some good points in the sense that we need funds, from my understanding, for the northern areas or the northern territories for housing. At least it's properly stated for housing and food subsidies. That's what we've been hearing for years. The question is, how do we get the money to people who need it the most.
To the contrary, things like...and I'm not even sure who I'm going to ask this question to. I heard in presentations that we need to increase the northern tax deduction. In a sense, if a large segment of the population is under the base level of poverty, nobody's going to be able to take advantage of this, or very few people are going to take advantage of it. I think that was Ms. Montreuil's point. I don't know who'd like to comment on that.
I'd like to have you comment on that, Ms. Melhorn, because I think you asked for an increase in the northern tax deduction.