Bill 112, a law drafted by community groups, and designed to cut poverty in half over the next ten years, was passed unanimously by the National Assembly. The new law commits the provincial government to establishing an anti-poverty action plan within two months and to giving a progress report on its fight against poverty every three years. It also sets a minimum level for social assistance payments, creates a monitoring agency, and provides funds for special anti-poverty initiatives. That success story is the subject of a background paper written Alainn Noël of the Université de Montréal. The paper, A Law Against Poverty: Quebec’s New Approach to Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (Dec 2002), (in PDF) can be downloaded from the Canadian Policy Research website.