Thank you so much, Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses.
In the limited time, I will focus my questions on Dr. Robson.
Thank you so much for being with us today, and, more broadly, for your work to ensure the public has the information they need, in plain language, no less, to access some of the emergency programs that have been rolled out. It's been a terrific resource for my team. Thank you as well for recognizing constituency office workers.
To my staff at home and in Ottawa, you have kept a lot of people fed and housed in the past few months. I want to say thank you for all the work you've done.
One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is the fact that my constituency staff have to do so much case work, when in fact that service should be provided by the public service, or perhaps by some sort of a navigator. Maybe there should be a non-profit-type solution, as you've recommended.
One thing that jumps out at me from the past few weeks when I compare them to the past few years is the simplicity of the design of the CERB in particular. We have a whole group of people who have never had to access social supports before, perhaps because they have a healthy income and don't live in poverty, who have had to click more or less "okay" and receive money in their bank account days later.
Over the past few years, in my constituency office, we have seen thousands upon thousands of people who are living in poverty trying to navigate a complex web of provincial, federal, municipal and community programs and they are scraping by with not quite enough really to live and be healthy, often in rural communities that have no transit.
What lessons can we learn from the simplicity of design or perhaps the policy design of the CERB or other federal programs, perhaps the Canada child tax benefit, that we are going to be able to apply on the back end of this crisis to help eradicate poverty in Canada once and for all?