Human Resources committee  I'd like to pick up on a couple of the points. I've appeared on many occasions before the UN committee that monitors our implementation of social and economic rights. In May of this year they looked at the delegation from Canada, looked at Canadian NGOs, and pointed out that we

Human Resources committee  Maybe I could jump in. Adequacy was referred to by Mr. Lake, and how do we know adequacy. I ask my poverty law students each winter, what do you think the eligibility rate is for a single person; and in terms of adequacy, how much would a single person on assistance get? They al

Human Resources committee  On that point, the National Council of Welfare is absolutely amazing in terms of providing and publishing authoritative, reliable, and recent information about social assistance adequacy. What it says is that the state of social assistance in Canada, in terms of adequacy, is outr

Human Resources committee  Perhaps I can add to that. The sense one gets from the Professor Sarlo approach--he stressed this in his conclusion--is that we shouldn't take any steps before we've agreed on statistical methodologies and so on. The effect of this would be to induce a kind of paralysis: “Oh,

Human Resources committee  Absolutely it's a bad idea. When we think of the tools that are available to the federal government, I've tried to stress that one of the main vehicles or instruments available is the social transfers as well as the spending power more generally. One simple but very powerful st

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. Good morning. I am a human rights lawyer from Halifax. I practise exclusively in the area of poverty law. I do that domestically and through international human rights litigation. Good morning. My name is Vincent Calderhead, and I live in Halifax, Nova Sc