In terms of the poverty plan, the provincial plan here is called the all aboard strategy. While it has many good steps dealing with some of the core issues around poverty, I would still say that it's not a comprehensive plan. I would still say that it doesn't have clear targets and timelines for outcome-based results, which is critically important and goes to your question about how you get there.
I would say that it could really be strengthened with anti-poverty legislation and built-in accountability measures, whether those are annual public reports on outcomes or public advisory councils that hold them accountable for the different actions. Then there has to be political will, which I think there is at the provincial level, but some of those other pieces are missing. This political will would ensure that the actions are consistent with this desire for a poverty reduction strategy that goes through the different departments.
As I said, each department has different kinds of opportunities to impact poverty. But when you say you want to end child poverty--and poor children live in poor families--and you don't follow through with social housing or child care strategies, and you're cutting the EI support, there really isn't a cross-departmental consistent effort to achieve that desired outcome. So it goes back to your question of how you achieve it. You have to make sure there's consistency through the departments to achieve it.
The policy framework and lens they talked about is a community economic development policy framework and lens. What it does--the lens, in particular--when government people and departments are implementing different kinds of programs and initiatives, whether it's capital projects or policies, is ask a series of questions. What is the local decision-making component in this initiative? Is this building local capacity for communities to take leadership? What is the skills development and training component? Is this hiring local people? Is this stimulating the local economy? Is this considering the environment in the work? Is this considering human dignity in the community?
So it asks a series of questions and it could be tailored to be a poverty reduction lens, which wouldn't be that much different. But if at any time the government acted on a different kind of project--whatever department it would happen to be--if it asked these questions and asked what the impact is going to be on people who live in poverty and on poor communities, and if it really built that into the considerations, I think it could have a good impact. That's where the concept of a lens can be quite useful. But it has to have some teeth to it.