Thank you, Chair.
Good morning to you. We're really delighted to have the opportunity to chat with you today. Like other members of this committee, I'm part of the Irish diaspora, having been born in the north and having deep roots in the Republic, and many relatives over there.
It certainly gives me an awful lot of pride and pleasure to see the great progress that's been made in Ireland in terms of combatting poverty. As Gerry mentioned, there have been lots of economic challenges in Ireland over the years. Today Ireland is flourishing in so many ways. It's third in the index of economic freedom, fifth in the UN human development index. In 2005 it was first in the Economist Intelligence Unit's quality of life index, measuring health and family life, community life, job security, gender equality, and things like that.
I think by any measure the work that's been done in Ireland has certainly been very positive. We were hoping, as Gerry would know, to get over there next week to talk to you and take part in the conference on basic income. Hopefully we'll have a chance to do that in person sometime, but we appreciate the fact that we have this opportunity today.
We want to do something significant in Canada in terms of battling poverty, and we have to work out the measures and work out all those sorts of things.
I'd like to just ask, first of all, if I could, those of you who were there at the beginning, in 1997 and before that, if you could give us a recommendation based on your experience.
How do you mobilize the general population to the importance of bringing in a significant and robust anti-poverty campaign for a nation?