Those are good points. Yes, the provincial government is only one player at the table, and yes, it's a very tight timeframe. But when the provincial government comes to the table as a player....
We're a bit unique, in that we're an umbrella group. This is not about just the Department of Social Development. This is broader. Every government department has a role to play in helping to reduce poverty, especially when we hear such things as the point that mental health issues are causing poverty. The education system, public safety...all of those other departments are coming together.
The non-profit groups don't have an umbrella organization per se for which they can have a leader. We're like a pyramid. We say, “Here are the things that are coming out of the “What Was Said” document that suggest government needs to do things differently.” So that group gets together, they consider whether they need to re-profile dollars, and they see that it's an opportunity to look at those things they've been doing and haven't evaluated for a long time, to recognize that they're not working.
Maybe people in New Brunswick will say to stop putting money into adult literacy and put more money into the early childhood years. We heard that over and over: kids need to learn to read so they can read to learn. That's not my phrase; it's Dr. Doug Willms'.
It is important to look at where we're spending our money. The other players who will come to the table, the non-profit groups and the business sector, also need to contribute and to consider where they can help.
There are some great models happening in New Brunswick. The Business Community Anti-poverty Initiative in Saint John is a model that is working fabulously. In it, the three sectors have come together and are really making strides in reducing poverty in Saint John, which used to be the most hard hit area of the province with respect to poverty.
Then there's implementation. I used to be an evaluator and I'm all about implementing. This is not another study. We continue to reiterate that. This will produce a plan that everybody will share in helping to implement. We will ensure that there are monitoring mechanisms in place, and we will establish measures to ensure that we are reaching our objective, or the global objective that is set by the next round of participants.