I don't have a silver bullet. My earlier comment was that I don't think we have a single poverty measure silver bullet. One measure won't do all of the tasks that we need. But I would recommend, on your question of whether we need a national measure, that it's very important to have a set of national measures that can be used to assess the well-being of people living in Corner Brook and those living in Prince George. I think it is important in a country such as Canada to have standards and measures, like the unemployment rate, GDP, and the like, that are broadly applicable across the country.
I think we do need relative income measures like the LICO, and we can debate the pros and cons of the particular methodology, but that's important. It tracks low income and income inequality. But I would argue that we need to continue to develop a series of deprivation measures, whether it's the MBM or a list of.... For instance, New Zealand has developed a very interesting living standard index over the last decade as part of their social report, which would be very interesting. It would provide more of a direct assessment of people's access to basic goods and services, in some ways similar to some of the measures we have around housing.
But following up on Glenn's point, it would provide a more direct assessment of people's actual living circumstances. I think that would be hugely useful, certainly in a policy and program context, and such a measure could be developed at a provincial or a community level.
I made this case earlier around the United Kingdom. One of the things that have happened in the United Kingdom is that they have made a significant investment in data development and measurement at the local level. They have an extraordinary website, their neighbourhood statistics website—and I can leave the address with the clerk. For 32,000 communities in the United Kingdom, which is extraordinary, they provide incredibly detailed information about community living circumstances and material deprivation in those communities and compare them--actually their status or their ranking--with other communities in the U.K. They call it a swingometer, which I think is a funny term. A resident member can log into this website and find an incredible range of information. But it took the national government in England making that decision around poverty, prioritizing it, and making the investment in data development and measurement, so that 10 years later they have these data that are tremendously useful.
I would recommend a suite of measures. Canada needs to look at creating a deprivation or a living standard index, which I think would be tremendously useful to do.