The Union is committed to achieving the Europe 2020 strategy which set the objectives of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, highlighting the role of research and innovation as key drivers of social and economic prosperity and of environmental sustainability and setting itself the goal of increasing spending on research and development in order to attract private investment of up to two thirds of total investments, thereby reaching an accumulative total of 3 % of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020 while developing an innovation ...[+++] intensity indicator.

Pierre Fortin, a very well-known Quebec economist, has shown that the money given to these enterprises basically compensates for the loss of productivity linked to the handicapped, and that the cost of these people, who no other enterprise would be willing to hire and who would otherwise be on welfare, is much higher than the contribution to the social enterprises that are out on the market creating all kinds of employment and increasing the gross national product of Canada.

On October 17, 2000, during the World March of Women to combat poverty and violence against women, the Quebec Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse noted that, despite difficulties or variations in measuring poverty, it has remained an important phenomenon that affects a large number of individuals and households in Quebec (1110) The National Council of Welfare, in a document published in July 2002, entitled Poverty Profile 1999, indicated that even though Canada's gross domestic product increased by almost 5% in fiscal 1998-99, income disparity between Canadians increased or stayed the same as in the 1990s.

Expenditure on social protection accounts for 28.5% of Community GDP, the bulk of which (63%) is spent on pensions and health care.

Among the problems of common interest in this field, the Commission has selected three which, it fells, are of particular signifiance for a new and more detailed phase of the exchange of views which has been going since 1983 in the wake of the initial communication on this topic which the Commission sent to the Council in 1982. They are the problems underlying the financing of current or projected needs in terms of social protection expenditure, the implication of demographic trends and the worsening problem of marginalization (the "new poor") which is affecting or threatening a considerable number of people in the Member States. 1. Fin ...[+++]ancing problems In spite of steps taken to curb the growth in social expenditure over the last few years, the public authorities were long unable to restore financial equilibrium and were thus obliged to impose new social charges or taxes. In 1984, the percentage of the gross domestic product accounted for by current public revenue -up to two thirds of which is destined for the financing of social protection - was close to 50% in most Member States.

As the Government of Canada maps its future actions through the prism of deficit reduction, we believe that the process safeguards a magnitude of benefits that are awaiting to be unlocked, will remove significant uncertainty to a large-scale resource development, lead to sizeable increases in gross domestic product impacts and minimize the risk to taxpayers while jettisoning the standing of First Nations into the current century from both an economic and social perspective.