Thank you for inviting us from New Brunswick today.
My speech is quite a bit different from Bernard Richard's. I want to talk about the fact that in my role as an executive director of the John Howard Society, I work personally and individually with people who live in poverty and who are suffering from the consequences of poverty every day.
Over 95% of the 150 individuals we deal with are living in poverty. These are people whom we actively work with each year, people who walk through our door. They suffer from low education levels, low literacy levels, poor employment history, poor physical health, engaging in risky sexual behaviour, and conflict with the law. To survive these challenges, they develop a lot of poor coping strategies, which lead to poor decision-making, poor problem-solving skills, impulsiveness, and of course substance abuse. Substance abuse is having a huge impact on our community and provincial resources. The cost to health care is increased vastly. A homeless person in Canada uses $4,714 in health care, compared with $2,633 for an average person. I think that's a significant cost to the federal government.
When you look at the province of New Brunswick—