I think that in looking at poverty, we're at the point where we've moved away from charity and toward justice. Hopefully we'll get to the point where it'll actually be investment, and we'll look at the cost of poverty as opposed to the cost of not addressing it.
This morning, Charlotte Hrenchuk of the Yukon Status of Women Council gave us some specific recommendations. One of them was to give adequate funding to organizations working with the poor. Organizations that work with the poor at ground level don't get a lot of government help; they're putting these amazing programs together, they're the best people to deliver this service--and I'm sure it's the same with Maryhouse and with Victoria Faulkner--but we make it very hard. If you do qualify for government funding, you basically have to hire somebody to write grants and apply for a little bit here and little bit there, as opposed to A-base funding.
I think that's really important for us to understand, because we sometimes think that in the name of efficiency we have to have these big national programs, which in many ways don't address the needs of Whitehorse or Saskatoon or Sydney, Cape Breton, and places like that.