Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming in on such short notice.
It's a very interesting conversation. Mr. Lafontaine is being flanked by those two, and I think the connection is very strong.
You look at budget 2023 and what transpired over the past three years with a global pandemic. I know there was a 64% increase in working-class people taking up food banks during that time.
I'm looking forward to the day that we look back at this day today and say, “What did the Canada workers benefit do for low-income workers?”. You talked about it in your preamble and its effects. On property flipping, what's that doing to affordable housing? There's predatory lending, which is what some of the people who are coming through your front door are being affected by.
With the Canada child benefit, I know in my home province of Prince Edward Island there are so many people who don't file their taxes. They just don't see the need. There are millions and millions of dollars sitting on the table, waiting to be picked up by them, and we've heard stories about when they've gone back retroactively. You can imagine some of the people walking through your door going back retroactively and getting cheques for thousands of dollars.
Then there's dental care and the Canada disability benefit, which I am a strong supporter of, and also OAS and GIS. Then we get into the skilled trades workers relative to the Canada workers benefit, and everything that goes with that, which is again the working-class poor, if that's what you want to call them. I'll be looking forward to someday looking back and seeing the success that you guys continue to have, even though you're in troubled waters like the rest of us—and by the rest of us, I mean my province.
I'm interested in hearing whether there is anything else. Mr. Blaikie took some of my question on the basic guaranteed income, which has been very strongly researched on Prince Edward Island. The other part of it, Mr. Lafontaine, is that we're doing actually a pharmacare pilot on the island, and it's working out very well.
I don't know how you take the basic guaranteed income and put all this into that basket. It's way above my capabilities, but it looks like we're going in the right direction, if we can get through what the global pandemic has put on our society, especially the most vulnerable.
I want to hear from each of you very quickly. I don't know how much time I'll have, because I'm doing a lot of talking. Are we going in the right direction with these programs? I know the troubled waters are there, and we've seen them. What is your perception of that?
I'm very interested, Mr. Lafontaine, if we get a chance, to talk about artificial intelligence, which you mentioned.
Ms. Nicholls, perhaps you want to start.