Human Resources committee  First of all, I'd like to point out, around the impact of the minimum wage on employment, that Alberta has recently raised its minimum wage. Alberta was one of two provinces in the last reporting from Statistics Canada that increased employment over the last month. One would thin

Human Resources committee  I think it would be a measure that would reduce poverty, because we already have one, and it works. It's called the guaranteed income supplement. We know that it's been very successful in raising seniors out of poverty, and really what we're talking about is expanding that princi

Human Resources committee  That's a good example of why poverty is much more than an economic issue. When we look at the situation that many immigrants, particularly recent immigrants, find themselves in, it is a confluence of factors. It's about the lack of recognition of qualifications. It's about the la

Human Resources committee  Again, on the employment side, we can take measures that would increase the quality of employment. That may be, certainly, raising the federal minimum wage, but also looking at the power of the federal government in its role as a procurer of services, as an employer, implementing

Human Resources committee  I think one of the fundamental pieces of work that needs to be done, and which I commend the government for moving forward on, is a national housing strategy, because we need to ensure that there is an adequate supply of affordable housing. Once you do that, you move people who s

Human Resources committee  Yes, I think alignment is critically important, and my colleague Dr. Moscovitch alluded to where the solution to that lies. When we moved away from the principles of conditionality, from the Canada assistance plan, and moved to the Canada social transfer, which has no conditions,

Human Resources committee  Exactly.

Human Resources committee  Poverty among seniors. I think our other panellists have spoken about the economic dimension of that poverty. Certainly, many seniors are living in precarious economic circumstances, but to return to my earlier theme, they're in a precarious social condition. Social isolation is

Human Resources committee  When we think about preventing poverty, which is what I really think we need to think about much more than remediating it, we have to look at the sources of vulnerability. Another key learning, I think, we took away from the mayor's task force is that we're all vulnerable. When

Human Resources committee  The major lesson we learned about reducing poverty was what I started with. It is more than just an economic condition. We did start with that economic focus and quickly found that it's as much a social condition as an economic condition. As such, the strategy we need to employ i

Human Resources committee  I'd like to begin by responding to the question about what poverty is, the lead-off question, and I'm going to refer to Bill C-245, which provides a pretty useful definition, from our perspective, in the preamble: poverty is the condition of a human being who does not have the

Human Resources committee  I'm not an expert on environmental policy, but with the carbon tax, we're concerned about the impact on low-income families, particularly. Our position would be that any carbon tax that would be introduced would need to have some provision to offset the impact of it on low-income

Human Resources committee  I was about to conclude.

Human Resources committee  In conclusion, we commend the government once again on its renewed commitment to eradicating poverty and reviewing its income support architecture. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you. I look forward to our ongoing conversation.

Human Resources committee  Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning and to share our thoughts about poverty and Canada's income security system. I'd like to begin by commending the government for their renewed commitments to poverty reduction and for initiating this program revi