Mr. Speaker, the subject matter before the House has to do with a national strategy for poverty alleviation. From the speeches so far, we have had an indication that there are a number of social determinants of poverty. The member mentioned women, for example. We have heard others talk about the needs of aboriginals. We have talked about youth. We have talked about seniors and the disabled and those who are not able to help themselves.
It was also said in an earlier speech that it is not possible to totally eliminate poverty as we know it. I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not we should seek an absolute elimination of poverty or, rather, establish realistic and achievable short, medium and long term targets to get at the root causes and get some progress made on benchmarks that we are prepared to tolerate while we get the necessary programs and supports in place.