It's tricky for me, Mr. Chair. I do think we're getting there, but Mr. Lessard makes a very astute point that you can't, on the one hand, say that we haven't had progress, and on the other hand add a whole bunch of different things. The national child tax benefit and the national child supplement are particularly good, and the WITB has the potential to be good. I don't think it helps enough people yet. It's not coordinated with all the provinces yet, but it's a mechanism that could work.
I remind committee members of the response of the Government of Canada earlier this year in reaction to the recommendation at the United Nations Human Rights Council's universal periodic review. Canada specifically indicated that they do not accept recommendation number 17, which is that we should have a national anti-poverty plan. The Canadian response indicated provinces and territories have jurisdiction in the area of social policy. They have developed their own programs to address poverty. This committee was doing this study on developing a plan to reduce poverty in Canada, to come up with an anti-poverty plan, while the government was specifically taking it out of recommendations from the universal periodic review of the UN.
It seems to me this motion has to correspond to the work this committee is doing. We undertook this study a year and a half ago or longer. This has been floating around for a couple of weeks, and I understand we're getting frustrated with some of the language, but it does seem to me that this has to relate to the work of this committee. We don't want to call upon the government to come out tomorrow with an anti-poverty plan, because it won't mean anything. The work we are doing in this committee should be connected to this motion in some way. I wonder if that is felt by other members.