Anyway, I want to thank you for being here. It is a great message you have brought us today.
I also want to comment on Mr. Howlett's presentation. We were all happy to vote for John McKay's excellent bill dealing with development aid, but the domestic poverty is what we are more seized of in my communities now, because 47% of the families in my riding live below the poverty line, and 52% of the children. In the richest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world, those are embarrassing statistics. In some western European countries and Scandinavian countries, the incidence of child poverty is zero, absolute zero.
My colleague Tony Martin, who I know you work with and know, is developing a bill modelled after Quebec's legislation: that there will be a poverty reduction strategy so that we can set targets for reducing poverty in the same way as we set targets to reduce the deficit back in the 1990s; that everything we do should be viewed through the lens of what this will do to effect the social change necessary. Is your organization in favour of the language being developed associated with Tony's bill, or are you aware of it and working on it?