We've had some really good steps during the past couple of years, both in Manitoba and in Canada. With the introduction of the Canada child benefit program, you start to see a drop in food bank use already because of that. People have access to better shelters because of the rent assist program.
I think if you start to look at it globally, you can start to see the makings of a basic income program right across Canada because we have basic income for seniors, we have, for families, the start of basic income with the child benefit program, and for renters here in Manitoba there's rent assist. One of the biggest gaps we see, though, is for the basic needs of things like food, clothing, communications, and transportation. That chunk is missing, and people have to go to social assistance programs that are almost always inadequate and have barriers and all kinds of problems.
Diane was talking about it taking all day to be poor. If you're having to go to the welfare office to knock on six different doors, it's not only inefficient, it's degrading. It reduces your ability and your capacity to enter employment and to develop your training and skills. If we could just get, across the board, basic income programs that deal with all of those elements, then people can have firm ground to stand on to get to the next level of their development.