I would like to give you my impressions in English because that is my mother tongue. It is English from England.
Even for Canadians, I accept and understand that my own accent is very difficult at times.
First of all, I'm going to speak to the document that explains my life situation, which has the same title, My Own Life Situation. You will be receiving copies of this, as I provided the clerk with 20 copies in English. This was largely written by my wife. It explains how we have lived in poverty for 15 years since I went back to England from Ottawa in 1994. I simply would like to read the last paragraph for you, and I hope the translators can understand my accent.
Since 1994, even though I have a PhD in chemistry and an international reputation as a research chemist, I have been largely unemployed. You could say that I've not really suffered, since one of us already had a job, we've always had a place to live, and there has always been enough food to eat. However, there have never been any extras. Every penny we spend has to be accounted for. We live a hand-to-mouth existence. It's all of this that makes us continually ill.
My wife wrote this for me because she is continuously ill from the stress of our existence—and that's typical of poverty.
I brought two books for the committee to possibly see. The first one is called The Age of Insecurity, and the second is called The Impact of Inequality.
You are probably aware that income inequality and economic inequality—that segment we call poverty—is at the heart of increasing levels of insecurity and crime worldwide. It's also responsible for the ill health that we see right across societies. If you want one phrase, I would say that poverty is poison; it's literally poison. There are molecules in your bloodstream, even though you may not live in poverty, that are reducing your longevity, increasing the possibility of your being subject to homicide, and increasing your likelihood of illness. That molecule is called cortisol.
I'd like to finish this segment with a short poem called Let Love Live.
Please pardon me for reading these words in English.
If we can live as well as we can be,
if we can do as well as we can do,
if we can live as love asks of us,
all will be well.
Your questions have asked us to provide you with indicators of levels of poverty in Canada. You will be receiving this document, but we can only provide it in English on short notice.
There are two characteristic measures that I'd like to speak to. The first one is what I call the Canadian Tire measure of poverty. You've probably seen on television the kid who goes to the lunch counter looking for a job, and the owner says “You should be playing hockey”, and the kid says, “Well, that's why I'm here”. The Canadian Tire measure—unofficially, of course—is that one-third of children live in poverty in Canada, and likewise their families.
The stronger indicator of poverty that's accepted worldwide is the Gini coefficient. It's worth looking at this on the Internet; even the much-vilified Wikipedia has a section on the Gini coefficient. That's the coefficient both the United Nations and the “Criminal Intelligence Agency” use, because the CIA knows that inequality and poverty lead to crime, violence, and war—as Hugh Segal pointed out in his Gow lecture on Friday night. We have that data, which we can share with you.
I'll hand my turn over to my colleague.
