Thank you very much. It would have been my pleasure to answer you at great length.
I want to thank you for everything you have done to prepare for the committee's work on poverty.
Your information on the way benefits help our families is precious. I invite you to share it with the members of my team, so that the department can do the work it has to do and ensure that the benefits provided by the Canadian government are easily accessible to the families who need them.
As for the questions on assistance for small communities, you will see in the government's infrastructure program an amount of $2 billion specifically dedicated to smaller communities. As you rightly said, for all sorts of reasons, it is more difficult for those communities to get the resources they need from the Canadian government, and this money should help them.
You talked about the definition of poverty and the middle class. I hear your suggestions. I know that you are working very hard on defining poverty in your work. It's very important because, to have credibility across government, we need to know what poverty trends mean and what policies would help reduce poverty over time.