Okay.
Thank you very much for being here.
As we study the economic security of women, you are the key departments that help us. We have heard so many witnesses, and witness after witness has talked about how women face the impact of going out of the workforce due to maternity, due to giving care, etc. We rely on the two departments to do some gender-lensing. Through that gender-lensing, we are hoping that you can help us in alleviating the impact.
When the deputy minister of finance was here—we asked them to give us some feedback on the working income tax benefit and its threshold, and why somebody who earns $22,000, or a lower income than the poverty threshold—I was just going through this book here that asks what is the threshold for poverty. If the threshold for poverty is $25,000 to $30,000 for a single person, then why is an income of $22,000 too high for the working income tax benefit and too low for the child tax benefit? Those are issues that we have to grapple with, and I think we are all working in tandem trying to see how we can alleviate poverty.
I didn't mean any offence, but just so that you would know what I was talking about, I had the two forms brought in showing the actual rates for 2005 and 2006. We were not debating it, but we were just trying to clarify it.
There is so much information that you have given us, and there are certain things that have been put in place, and we have asked Finance for information on them as well. As it goes through its gender lens—how do all these credits that have come through help women?
There is some mechanism on which I think you were questioned by Madame Deschamps. How does a person who does not qualify for EI access that fund you were talking about? We do not have information on the mechanism and we don't understand the mechanism. So there are a lot of things we do not know, perhaps because this mechanism has come through this budget and has probably not been mechanized. That's our frustration. If we could just find out how the mechanism works, and the information that Madame Barbot and Madame Grewal have asked for, that is, the treaties we have with different countries on social security—
With that, do you want to have any last words?
You had a question, Ms. Mathyssen, and I did not let them answer. Do you remember what your question was, because I can give them the last minute or so to finish off any closing remarks they want to make?
I know you didn't make any opening remarks, but if you had some final words to say, we would appreciate them.