This amendment is intended to increase transparency. I have to resign myself to two things today: the words in the title will remain “poverty reduction” and the official poverty line will be the market basket measure.
What I am proposing here is more transparency and regularity in calculating the poverty line, which, as we said before, is the market basket measure. The bill provides for the official metric to be reviewed on a regular basis, but it gives no details as to the frequency.
Amendment NDP-21 proposes that the metric be reviewed annually so that it reflects the reality, year after year. The metric must genuinely reflect poverty and we must not allow it to be reviewed only on occasion. The bill should require the tool to be reviewed. This amendment gives more teeth to the provision on reviewing the metric.