I want to talk to the Teachers' Federations about the long-term poor.
In a recession you get a whole bunch of new people coming in who are poor, but there's a different dynamic. They're trying to get back into the workforce. I think some of this is in the study that John's group has done around labour market improvement and that kind of thing. A large number of people are stuck in poverty and don't seem to be able to get out of it. It seems to me we need to come at it from a far broader perspective than some of the really good work that's being done out there to try to target particular individuals and come up with new programs, and that is to look at this from a human rights perspective. We as Canadians have signed on to international covenants that we don't live up to.
Has your association done anything to look at that and how we might encourage government to bring in programs that would help people simply because they're human beings, simply because they're deserving of dignity and to live a quality of life that reflects the wealth within this country?