Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to begin by saying we're against this. We're surprised. The clause would eliminate the National Council of Welfare. We're deeply concerned about the government's dismissal of organizations that seem to provide the evidence base, in this case, for social policy.
We've looked with concern at environmental areas, where the government seems to struggle with evidence-based offerings from various scientists. They seem to struggle in other areas where evidence-based groups have supplied verifiable studies and verifiable information.
Ms. Glover will recognize this, that the modus operandi of the government, or at least what's suggested, is that they struggle—there's the long form census—with evidence that's provided by various levels of the scientific community.
We have a situation, and I think it's acknowledged around the world but it is in fact in Canada too, that income inequity is on the rise. I think the phenomena we've seen in the last 10 months to a year, the occupation groups in the U.S. and in Canada, represent the communities' sense of it. Whether they're right or wrong, we can argue and we can debate that, but there's a very real situation happening, and we need to understand for better or for worse why it's happening.
In Hamilton there's an organization called the Social Planning & Research Council of Hamilton. Locally, for years, we've depended on reports from that particular group. For example, in my community of 500,000 people, there are over 120,000 who live in poverty. The reason I talk about that relative to this is because that's the evidence-based material that we rely on in our community as we plan going forward.
So to see the elimination of the National Council of Welfare taking place is quite disturbing.
I'll cut it short there.