Thank you, Chair.
And thank you, Mr. Schultz and Ms. Bacon.
I'm a Liberal MP from Nova Scotia and the human resources critic for the Liberal Party. I've been involved with this poverty study since the inception, along with Mr. Martin, and Mr. Allison, I think, and Mr. Lessard from the Bloc.
We are travelling this week. There would normally be more members, but some were called back to Ottawa. They will be rejoining us in Yellowknife tomorrow.
We often hear that we don't need to study poverty. We know it exists. We know the root causes, and by and large we know that if there's political will we can find solutions. One of the important reasons to get out and see the land is that there are some areas of need you might not know about by sitting in Ottawa.
Yesterday, in Vancouver, for example, we heard a lot about the loss of the Fraser River salmon and the hurt that has caused indigenous peoples in a lot of communities.
Here, the issue of water is one that I don't think most Canadians realize we have. There are areas in Canada where there isn't sufficient drinking water. There's a bit of attention when you hear about Kashechewan or Attawapiskat, places like that. But clearly that is something that has to be addressed in an anti-poverty plan. That is a very basic need. You can't live without clean water.
From what we've heard so far in the Yukon, the homelessness issue seems to be the number one issue—getting that national housing strategy in place that addresses all needs and all communities.
I just want to make one other point. There seems to be a growing gap between the rich and the poor in Canada even though we've had some decent times in the last decade. I'm quoting Campaign 2000:
Inequality between the rich and poor in Canada has grown more than in any other OECD country during the last decade, with the exception of Germany. For every dollar the average family with children in the poorest 10% of the population had, the family in the highest tenth of the population had almost 12 times as much..... Clearly, the wealth generated during good economic times was not distributed equitably.
Would that be the same in the Yukon? What is your view on that?