Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to speak in support of the motion before us today. I want to start by just noting that a revved up and healthy economy does not equate directly to reducing poverty unless there is a clear strategy in place to ensure that benefits and opportunities trickle through to all people that need it. Again, we can have a revved up economy, we have had a revved up economy, and yet we are still struggling with these issues.

We are looking today for a clear commitment to put together a strategy to address that. The income gap is growing. The disparity is growing steadily and will only continue to worsen again unless we develop explicit measures in such as a document as the strategy and implement those to address that.

We’re not alone in this, by the way. Just about every jurisdiction around the world is struggling with this. I’m not saying we’re the only ones here, but we are part of the… This is a challenge that many have and we need to address it and show some leadership.

We are able to take advantage, in this case, of lessons learned and mistakes that have been experienced from other jurisdictions. Ms. Bisaro mentioned a couple of those. There are a number of them in Canada and the successful ones are

really standing out. I don’t see us taking advantage of these lessons learned. We need to do that.

The comprehensive Anti-Poverty Strategy needs to be developed by a real cross-section of society and overseen by the same. With that, it has some real promise. Again, I don’t see that happening very well yet, so we need some clarity on that and we need to put that in place.

A most recent example of jurisdictions that I’m aware of who have been successful versus those that haven’t is the situation contrasting Ontario with Alberta. During the recession in ’08 and ’09 here, Ontario, which did have a comprehensive Anti-Poverty Strategy in place, actually decreased the number of people living in poverty. Whereas Alberta, as we know, one of the richest, possibly the richest province in Canada, experienced a significant increase in the number of people living in poverty. A stark example there that we should pay heed to.

We do not have to spend a lot, is my belief, in putting together and implementing a poverty strategy, but we do need to ensure the participation of this cross-section of society, including the NWT Coalition that has already done such good work.

We heard from the Premier today, I believe, a figure of $185 million we’re spending. To me, this is an opportunity. If we’re spending that much, surely a good, effective strategy put in place should be able to reduce that figure and so the savings indicate that this was a very reasonable investment.

Probably our biggest challenge and opportunity here is to capture and resolve the cross-departmental issues that people in poverty experience and that a number of Members have mentioned today. This is something that I’ve tried to harp on a lot, and I know others have because we hear about this from people who actually experience it day to day.

I’m in full support of this. I appreciate the Members that are bringing this forward, and basically I just want to say let’s get it done. Mahsi.