In your opening comments you mentioned something about inefficiencies and trimming the fat. I want to address that, because we do workshops on the budget; that's what our project is about. Women know all about trimming the fat; they know budgets are about priorities.
One of the questions we ask in our workshops is whether you would pay your mortgage all in one year and not feed your children, or not let them have recreation services, or not give them running shoes. Very clearly, you wouldn't do that.
Budgets are about priorities, and there are certain things that you don't cut. Poverty and inequality, when it comes to budgets, are extremely expensive. I live in inner-city Winnipeg; I can tell you the cost of poverty is very expensive in the area of the city where I live.