Human Resources committee  I would say there are two other important elements here. One is that the plan, the targets, and the timelines are absolutely essential. Mr. Brown is taking a battering in the British press right now, and he should be, because of how he has disinvested in poverty reduction. The second thing that's necessary is a vibrant voluntary sector to hold politicians' feet to the fire.

Human Resources committee  We realize how difficult and how expensive this is to do, so there are no illusions about that. We're very concerned that the decade that ended with the beginning of the recession was a decade of great economic growth, most of which went to the incomes of the upper decile of Canadians.

Human Resources committee  Thanks. I think it's a very good question. First, to address more generally the question of coordinating between federal and provincial plans, I think every one of the provinces, including Manitoba, that has put forward a poverty reduction strategy has pointed to the role of the federal government, perhaps most explicitly in Ontario, where they really said they could not meet their targets in their child poverty reduction plan without the participation of the federal government.

Human Resources committee  We're not sure, to tell you the truth. We would want to look at it. We think that one has to be adopted, but we'd be happy if in the interim the market basket measure were adopted to track progress.

Human Resources committee  Thank you. We'd like to thank the committee for coming to Winnipeg. The Social Planning Council is in its 90th year, and it's a membership-based, voluntary sector organization that focuses on three things: public policy advocacy, community development, and support of the voluntary and non-profit sector.