Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am pleased to see all of you again. I say it to our guests, because I could not be in Vancouver and Whitehorse. I also want to thank you for being there.
My name is Yves Lessard, and I am the Member of Parliament for Chambly—Borduas. The riding is located south of Montreal. I see here that the population of the Northwest Territories is 41,464. There are two and a half times that many people in my riding. I realize that the situation is altogether different, since my riding is in an urban area that I can cover by car in half a day, whereas you sometimes have to cross your territory by plane and it takes a day.
I myself am from a region with wide-open spaces, Abitibi-Témiscamingue. I am also quite familiar with life throughout northwestern Quebec.
I am going to refer to the evidence from Ms. Wilson, who came here 12 years ago now. When she arrived, we were normally supposed to be at the last stage in the process of attaining zero poverty. We known that in 1989, the House of Commons voted unanimously in favour of the objective of eliminating poverty by the year 2000. Yet we still see situations like the one Ms. Wilson described.
I know from evidence given in other circumstances, in particular when we studied employability, that it is not social solidarity or local or territorial solidarity that is lacking, as the mayor so aptly told this committee. It seems to me that what is missing is something else that we have yet to discover. Do we have to look to powers or strategic measures to meet this objective? That is I want to explore a bit with you.
I will start with Mr. McDonald. You said at the outset that we needed to talk about territorial status. If I understand you correctly, the territory should be treated differently than the provinces. Can you explain to us briefly what you mean by that and how that would change our approach and the way we deal with poverty?