It's clearly insufficient, and I think it also points to half measures. We have a history over forty years of half measures on this, so our poverty rates have barely budged. In fact we're been around for forty years as an organization, and tonight we have an event at which we'll mark that occasion. I'm putting up some slides that show people who are homeless in the 1970s. You can see the exact same picture today, except that there's a Starbucks in the background that wasn't there in the 1970s.
It's a case of half measures, a lack of a comprehensive approach, too much patting ourselves on the back.
Yesterday we heard again from Dr. Jeff Turnbull, and also from Mark Chamberlain, a very prominent businessman from Hamilton who is very outspoken on this issue, that we do too much patting our backs about the things we are doing and not enough about what needs to be done. We have a long way to go, including for seniors. Despite the fact that their poverty rate, of all the demographic groups in the country, is the lowest, there are still very troubling concerns that the rate is bouncing in the other direction.
So we have a lot to do. Again, the Senate and the HUMA reports laid out a number of recommendations that I think are well thought out and well considered; lots went into them, and I would encourage the committee to revisit those documents.