There's no way they can.
I happen to be a dairy farmer by profession. I have made the statement on a number of occasions that I have more regulations, more restrictions, more responsibility on how I treat my cows than what I see with our people. That disturbs me a lot, to the point of being involved in this organization. I find it very disturbing, and I haven't had anyone yet explain to me, and maybe someone here could, but I've thrown it out a lot.... The $294 that you're talking about is the single so-called employable person. We meet at the soup kitchens, and I dare challenge anyone to come along with me to the soup kitchen and pick out who you would employ in your office. Some of these people are my best friends and they know I wouldn't hire them on my farm because they have major issues. They are not employable in the world of business today. To give $294, that is $3,500 a year to live on. To rent a boarding room alone in Moncton, I haven't heard a rate of less than $300 a month. Some of the landlords have lowered their rate to take the cheque in hand because they know it's coming every month. There are absolutely zero dollars left for that individual to survive.
When you look at Atlantic Canada, before the provincial government of the day got in they had a beautiful plan on how to deal with poverty. They talked about bringing up those rates to the Atlantic Canada average. That particular rate would have to be raised 70% to be equivalent with Nova Scotia, P.E.I., and Newfoundland. Someone explain to me how that is rational because I don't get it. Even if you're lucky enough to get the classification of disability as a single individual in this province, you get a maximum of $600 a month to live on. Even to get categorized in that you have to prove you can't personally take care of yourself. It's unbelievable.