Thanks.
There are several committees within the UN human rights system and they are responsible for reviewing Canada's compliance with its international human rights obligations. That's their job. They're made up of independent experts. They don't represent any states, etc., so they're independent experts in the areas of human rights.
There have been many reviews of Canada recently by many committees and there is a consensus in certain areas, and poverty is one of them. Whether it's the committee dealing with women, or the committee dealing with economic, social and cultural rights, or the committee dealing with children, or the committee dealing with racial discrimination, it's been consistent within the UN human rights system that Canada is failing to meet its international human rights obligations.
The committees are very practical, so they come up at the end of their review—and it's on paper as well as oral—and they issue a series of recommendations. Those recommendations could be read by this committee and interpreted for its own purposes and incorporated into the committee's work.
The recommendations are very concrete. They say things like “Social assistance rates across the country are too low. People can't live on those rates and they have to be raised.”
As I said, human rights is a way of doing work, so they're very practical, and I think this committee would benefit from looking at all of those recommendations. CWP can certainly provide them to the committee.