Thank you very much.
I want to come at this from a slightly different perspective. We have this very challenging economic wave coming at us that in some instances we're in the middle of. It has the potential to be very exciting and positive. It also has the potential to swamp a lot of people, to destroy things. I think the challenge, and government has to be centrally involved, is how to get this wave to lift all the boats.
All of the reports that have come out in the last six months that I've read indicate that in this country we have poverty that's growing deeper and more pervasive. I was in Victoria recently, and I was in Calgary just the other night, and I'm seeing homelessness like I've never seen before. There's an interesting dynamic there. I also read yesterday in the newspaper that in Saskatoon, this poverty is actually costing in terms of health care; poverty makes you sick.
I think we have a chance here to actually do some pretty interesting and exciting things. Other jurisdictions around the world have done it differently and taken advantage of it. Earlier we mentioned Ireland, where they gathered everybody around the table and asked how over the next five years they could make sure that absolutely everybody was identified and that a plan was made to include them in the economy. It's the right thing to do, first, but more importantly, the economy needs them. We need to make sure that we provide people--disabled people, aboriginal people, women, new immigrants--with the opportunity to participate in some way.
I don't want to be overly partisan here, but I note the cuts recently to the volunteer sector. You talked about some of the work you're doing out of your food bank, wearing your food bank hat, and the cuts to the social economy, which are not helpful, in my view, particularly as we try to be creative and find new ways to include some of these folks who are difficult to engage.
Do you have any thoughts on how we might be more creative there?
I was a member of the Ontario Parliament in the early nineties, when we brought in a very comprehensive employment equity plan. It was working, particularly for the disabled. In my own community, many disabled people were accommodated. They were working into the system. Then we had a change of government in 1995. Mike Harris came in and did away with the employment equity plan, did away with all of the government vehicles that were there to try to help business and industry and community actually do what was required. I then found a big lineup of disabled people at my door. They had been lifted up and led to believe there was something there for them, and then, poof, they were dropped on their heads.
So how do we do this, and how do we do this in a sustainable way?