Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.
The Mennonite Central Committee is very pleased to be able to participate in these hearings. I want to start by acknowledging the role that this committee and its members have played in keeping a focus on the federal government's role in poverty reduction across Canada. Thank you for that work.
My particular position is that of poverty advocate from Mennonite Central Committee Ontario. I'll talk a little bit about that work, but first I'll say that if you're familiar at all with the Mennonite Central Committee, we're probably best known for the work we do overseas in relief, development, and peacemaking. But MCC does a lot of work across Canada.
In Ontario, for example, we do street ministry with people living on the streets in Toronto. The Circle of Friends program is working with women, helping them to move from the shelter in Kitchener to break the cycle of homelessness and make the move into independent living. We have restorative justice programs. We have the Aboriginal Neighbours programs, where we are working with first nations and aboriginal communities. We have refugee sponsorship in which many, many Mennonite and Brethren congregations sponsor refugees from across the world.
In all of that work, we encounter poverty and people who are marginalized by poverty, so part of my submission this morning comes out of this work that we do on the ground with people who have been marginalized.
This submission also reflects the work we do particularly in Ontario with several different coalitions that are working on poverty issues, like Campaign 2000, which is working on child poverty, the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition in Ontario, and the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction.
Our submission also is rooted in our faith conviction, a conviction that we're all called to create a society where all can be included, where every person can enjoy the fullness of life, and where our dignity as persons is truly respected.
What I'd like to talk to you about draws particularly on the work we've been doing in Ontario, where the Ontario government recently brought in a poverty reduction strategy and actually just a couple of weeks ago passed poverty reduction legislation, Bill 152, the Poverty Reduction Act.
My opening comments, I hope, will be very brief. Let me get to the substance of them. What I'd like to do is highlight several elements that I think are key for a strong federal poverty reduction strategy. They relate to human rights, participation, targets and indicators, legislation, and the need for a comprehensive plan of action.
Let me say first that Canada's poverty reduction strategy needs to be integrally linked to the international human rights commitments that Canada has made. These international human rights commitments, particularly with respect to economic, social, and cultural rights, should provide the framework for developing and implementing a pan-Canadian poverty reduction strategy. I won't go into more detail at the moment, but I'd welcome your questions on any and all of these points.
Second, let me talk about participation. The participation of Canadians is really important in the design, implementation, and evaluation of Canada's poverty reduction strategy, particularly for individuals and communities living in poverty. That participation is crucial if we're going to have an effective strategy. This is the same message we brought to the provincial government in Ontario and that we have seen in other jurisdictions in Canada, like Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, with their poverty reduction strategies.
Third, a strategy has to include medium-term poverty reduction targets and clear indicators for tracking progress on poverty reduction. Two types of indicators are needed, I would point out. One is policy effort indicators and another is outcome indicators.
Just to give an example, if we're talking about housing, the need to address homelessness, and the need for housing, indicators would be not just the amount of money that's allocated, say, for a national housing strategy, which Canada needs, nor how many units are built or how many people are served. Those would be policy effort indicators, and we need those kinds of indicators to track the success of a poverty reduction strategy, but we also need outcome indicators that show, for instance, how many people are in core housing need and how many people are homeless. The goal of the strategy is not just to build housing or provide service to so many people, but to actually make sure that people's right to adequate, secure housing is met.
So the strategy would need two types of indicators: outcome indicators and policy effort indicators. Also, data on each set of indicators should be disaggregated along geographic and demographic lines.
Again, I'd welcome your questions to flesh that point out a little more.
Fourth, legislation is important. Quebec is the first province in Canada to bring in poverty reduction legislation--An Act to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion--and Ontario, as I said, has recently brought in the Poverty Reduction Act. Canada's commitment to poverty reduction should also be enshrined in legislation. Again, I could elaborate on that further in questions if you'd like.
Lastly, Canada's poverty reduction strategy should set out a multi-year plan, in collaboration with provinces, territories, first nations, aboriginal organizations, municipalities, and community groups, to achieve sustained and deep reductions in poverty.
In Ontario, when the 25 in 5 Network went out to dozens of communities to gather input for Ontario's consultations on poverty reduction, we found in communities across the province the need for action in three broad areas. First is sustaining employment so that when people work they can live free of poverty. Second is livable incomes, particularly for those who can't work or who can't work full time for a full year, to make sure they can live with dignity at a reasonable standard of living. Third is strong and supportive communities. This relates to a range of programs and services that combine federal and provincial programs and funding with the kind of community programs Mr. Quist talked about. The combination of all three working at all those levels is very important.
I will just reiterate the five points: the poverty reduction strategy needs to be grounded in and integrally linked to Canada's human rights commitments; it must involve participation of people across the country, particularly those most impacted by poverty; it has to include clear targets and indicators for poverty reduction; the strategy should be enshrined in legislation; and the poverty reduction strategy has to include action plans that are renewed every two, three, or four years and updated.
I'll leave it at that, and I will welcome your questions when you have time for questions.