I have a question for you as well.
Although I know we like to think in terms of today's modern mediation, this is the crisis of all crises. It's been building for many years.
Many of the individuals we're dealing with have been living in poverty for many, many years. This is the current economic cycle; it's part of the cycle. It's going to be worse than it was, but it's still a cycle. Those who are at the lowest end of the scale have always been there. They don't see much change either way. What came to my mind, even as I was driving here, was that as you're touring the country, you're collecting all the reports that have been done in the 1970s and 1980s on the issue of poverty. Many have been done here in New Brunswick, right back to the Hatfield days: details, consultations in the community.
There's a whole round being done by the poverty reduction task force in New Brunswick right now, and I think we've all had an opportunity to participate. I posed that question to them a little while ago: had they read all the reports? Quite frankly, they hadn't at that point collected the report that had been made. There's a real focus in Saint John on a public housing area called Crescent Valley, where I happened to grow up. A tremendous report was done in the early 1970s, and they're now redoing new reports on Crescent Valley. But nobody has dug out the ones from the 1970s. I suspect you will find an awful lot of what you're hearing today is what we heard in the 1980s and the 1970s, when all those reports were done.
Please take the time to collect those reports across the country and start to recognize that this isn't only today's problem; it's systemic. It has been long-term systemic. You can learn from all of that. You don't have to talk to all of us. It is good to talk to us, but you don't have to talk to all of us to learn what many have known for many years and have been fighting for many years. Please, please collect those; please get them together and take that into consideration when you're putting your report together.