Then I guess we have to look at the kinds of things that would figure into poverty. You have housing, which is a provincial issue. You may have health, mental health, or drug addiction; those are in sort of a provincial area of jurisdiction. Income assistance is in a provincial area of jurisdiction, so you have the problem of how you work through that to deliver an end product that is acceptable. And because it's a jurisdictional issue, many provinces are very concerned about federal encroachment in areas that are under their specific jurisdiction. I know Quebec, for instance, has its own method of dealing with those issues and delivering them, but how do you suppose that can be dealt with? Currently, it's mostly by federal-provincial agreements, and there are hundreds of them. We're not talking two or ten. We're talking 400 or 500 various agreements expiring at different times, so it's quite complex in that sense. How do you make it easier? What's your suggestion? You have a number of provinces and territories, each with different programs. How do you deal with that in the context of our country, which is a federal system?
On May 11th, 2009. See this statement in context.