Thank you, Mr. Chair.
One of the issues in dealing with a poverty reduction strategy is to think to the future. From my standpoint, anyway, I see a looming crisis. It's the elephant in the room that people mention but don't really want to talk about, and that's the level of household debt in this country right now. We're looking at about $1.70 for every dollar that's taken in.
A lot of what we're dealing with, from what I sense through this committee's work and some of the research I've done, are the needs of the present. How are we dealing with the needs of the future, given the circumstances that exist? There are a lot of people in precarious positions right now financially. If interest rates go up, they're going to be in significantly precarious positions.
Mr. Barata, you spoke about the child tax benefit. Nanos Research recently did a poll and found that only 15% of the child tax benefit will go towards spending, and 85% will go towards paying household debt, so the idea that somehow this is going to lift people out of poverty perhaps is a little jaded.
I'd like to go across the panel. I only have four minutes or less now, but how do we deal with the looming crisis?