Thank you. We're sharing five minutes, so I'll be quick.
We are asking the committee to think about the budget in terms of the values that are behind it. We are putting forward, I think, a different set of values than perhaps you've heard from many of the other presenters.
We want to remind the committee that Canada has commitments to human rights, and these human rights commitments are in our Constitution: a commitment of the government and the Parliament of Canada to equal opportunity. We have a set of values that we've committed ourselves to in international human rights agreements.
What we tried to do in our presentation is bring the attention of the committee to what is an initiative internationally to link budgets to the commitments that we have made under international law to human rights. We highlight, in particular, a commitment to an adequate standard of living and the principle that there should be the maximum utilization of resources that a society has to meet those obligations.
This human rights value should inform decisions whether or not we're talking about stimulus spending or cuts because that's where the value decisions come in: what you cut, how resources are allocated. We invite the committee to engage with us on this.
I want to hand over the microphone to Professor Kathleen Lahey.