Canada's Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos speaks in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Dec. 9, 2015.CHRIS WATTIE/Reuters
The federal government will go to six cities in the coming months to test ideas that could end up in a promised national poverty reduction strategy.
Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos made the announcement Friday in the first city on the list: Saint John, N.B.
The project will see federal officials run case studies in Saint John, Trois-Rivieres, Que., Toronto, Winnipeg, Yellowknife and Tisdale, Sask., which was chosen so federal officials would have a rural community to test ideas.
The goal is to get a better idea of what works and what doesn't as the government crafts a national poverty reduction strategy that is expected to take into account work already being done in cities, provinces and territories.
A first step in that work will be finalizing a national housing strategy. That strategy is scheduled to be released in late November.
A local MP for Saint John, Wayne Long, first proposed making the city a test site for anti-poverty initiatives, outlining his case in a letter to Duclos' chief of staff in February.