Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Picard, and Ms. Dion, Tétrault, thank you for your very powerful testimony. I can't imagine what you're living with. I also am amazed that, given the life you describe, you have time for advocacy and to come here to tell the story. That's an extra challenge, and it's very important.
This is just what our study is looking at. We're looking at the women in Canada who are having the hardest time economically, why, and what policies we can put in place to try to support them.
If I understand the way you described it in your testimony, the major federal programs that might assist you are federal tax programs, for which you have to make enough money so that you are paying taxes and can then qualify for a tax rebate. Those programs are irrelevant to your families. We hear this in other areas as well. You can get a tax rebate, but you have to be wealthy enough to qualify.
That means that you and your families now live in poverty, and when you...I want to say retire, but you might not really exactly retire in a conventional way. As the members of your organization age, you will not have the pensions to support your life, and neither will you have the savings to pass on to your children for them to have security.
We need to do something. I mean that's not tenable because this has a multi-generational impact.
Can you tell us more? The personal story is very powerful. Tell us more about the impact both on you and your members and then on your children of this economic scarcity, and what the long-term implications are of that.