Human Resources committee  Jaime really should be answering this, but I'll tell you about it from the outside perspective. I did this job in Calgary as well. Day to day, the quarterback is essentially on the phone all day with the various providers. Jaime's sitting in her office and gets a call from the

Human Resources committee  Unfortunately, for better or worse, you come and go. The interests of governments are always changing. What you need to do is build an infrastructure at the local level that is beyond the politics. That's why we said there's no colour to this. If you build the infrastructure righ

Human Resources committee  You kind of nailed it: how do you recreate magic, and when the perfect storm comes together, how do you recreate those conditions? I'm not from Medicine Hat. I'm from Calgary. I work with lots of communities on different social issues. I have more of a comparative perspective. I

Human Resources committee  Where I was going with these key people is that there's usually not just one. There's usually a grouping of them. This idea of a quarterback is about bringing together those key movers and shakers in the community and creating some kind of a formal entity around them and giving t

Human Resources committee  Sure. I think I'll add something about system planning because it has come up a lot, and I think it speaks to what you're getting at as well. In the context of system planning and locally driven strategy and what Jaime was also alluding to, there needs to be a quarterback who ma

Human Resources committee  Unfortunately, I think the populations that get missed are the ones that our systems themselves find ways not to serve, so it's the chronically homeless and the people who have active addictions. It seems to be the ones who consistently get shut out of the system that we do have.

Human Resources committee  That's a good question. I spent 20 hours going through the impact of that exact issue because I was recalculating the living wage for this report. Yes, absolutely. Just to illustrate that, when Medicine Hat initially took on poverty work back in 2012, I believe the living wage

Human Resources committee  Do I have seven minutes?

Human Resources committee  No, no worries. As I said before, the reason I wanted to do my presentation a little bit differently from the way maybe others here are doing theirs is that I wanted to try to put myself in your shoes. I think what you're being tasked to do—to look into a poverty strategy for th

Human Resources committee  Okay. Maybe I'll wait until you get the package. Shall I keep going? All right. This idea of a multidimensional approach to poverty reduction is what—

Human Resources committee  I thought about what would be most useful for you, having looked at some of the materials that you've already covered in your trek across Canada, and also respecting the fact that we are in Medicine Hat and have an interest in what's happening locally. I thought I would give yo