Thank you.
As far as literacy goes, when you give somebody the ability to write their name, or when you give somebody the ability to pick something up when they understand what they're reading, you empower that person. My job requires me to be out and about in the community on a regular basis, and I'm proud to be out there.
The people are a brilliant bunch of people, but a lot of them don't know how to write their names. A lot of them don't know how to read the paperwork. A lot of them don't know how to do the social work paperwork that needs to be done. When you educate the masses, you empower the masses. I've heard that somewhere before. I've done so much reading, I forget where I read everything.
When you give people the opportunity to have some education, when you give them the opportunity to read for themselves, that leads to the desire to work. That's without a doubt, because...I'm sorry, it's my simple thinking; it's simply the way the mind works.
I should be more politically astute than I am, but if there have been cuts by the government to literacy, it's without a doubt going to affect people. I look at kids I deal with on a regular basis through the community who are hindered because they don't get the education they need. Poverty and literacy and education are mixed up together in one. As I said, it's my perspective, and I'm telling you this from the street.
I'm really excited by what this gentleman was saying. He said he's the national director, and I kind of stepped sideways, and I said “Oh, my goodness, I'm sitting beside a national director”. But the point is, he works with the community that I was in. Did you see those people in downtown Toronto, the ones that everybody talks about all the time? You could have seen me there for 25 years, because that's where I was. But because I had the ability to read, because I had the ability to think and reason--because reading has been my saving grace--I had the ability to lift myself up. So is poverty and literacy an important thing? Yes, sir.