Hon. Jane Cordy:

Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Announcements are great, but the reality is that many announcements are not followed by funding.

Last summer, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology's subcommittee studying cities went to St. John's, Newfoundland. One of the witnesses we heard from was Minister Skinner, who is responsible for dealing with poverty. Newfoundland and Labrador has a very forward-looking strategy to help eliminate poverty in their province.

Minister Skinner told us about federal-provincial meetings that were supposed to be established. He was to be a co-chair. The other co-chair, representing the federal government, was to be Minister Solberg. Minister Skinner said that he had been trying to arrange a meeting with Minister Solberg to get all of the provinces together. He had not been able to arrange a meeting for one year.

At that point, in August, Minister Solberg said that he would give all of the provinces one hour of his time in October. We know that in the meantime the Prime Minister called the election and that meeting did not take place. Mr. Solberg is no longer a minister in the government because he did not run in that election.

Is the federal government still part of a process to get all of the provinces together to talk about a national strategy to deal with poverty?


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