Now that you mention it, I was doing some reading, and in the mid-1990s Ireland made a determined effort to tackle its child poverty, poverty in general. At that point in time they had a rate of about 15%; ten years later it's at 6.8%. If you start to look at what's happening in Canada, we're at 19%; and my God, we have failed if it's increasing and not coming down.
In the reading, I discovered that they put together a ten-year plan, including a budget, dedicated money that looked at income, education, health, housing, affordable housing, and targeted women, children, seniors, and disabled people, including urban and rural dwellers. They made sure there was an inclusion there.
The responsibility for this was placed firmly on the Prime Minister, who oversaw a cabinet committee whose job it was to work for social inclusion, and they developed what they called the 20% plan. The 20% plan basically said that 20% of all new housing would be set aside for affordable housing, 20% of placements in colleges would go to needy young people, 20% of all new jobs would be directed toward the poor, and that their plan would reduce the number of persons on welfare by 20%. The bottom line was that they did have this impact.
Is this something for Canada? Is this something--it obviously works--that we should be importing here?