Premier Dalton McGuinty couldn’t have picked a better minister to spearhead his government’s anti-poverty drive than Deb Matthews.

The London MPP is on a first-name basis with the leaders of all the major groups fighting on behalf of low-income children, people with disabilities and families on social assistance.

She was a driving force behind the introduction of Ontario’s new child benefit last spring.

She spent her first year as a politician crossing the province to find out from welfare recipients, social assistance caseworkers and community activists what was wrong with Ontario’s income support system and drafting a 10-year plan to fix it. “I think our government should be judged on how well we help our most vulnerable citizens,” she said at the time.

She has worked with everyone from bank executives to union leaders to build a consensus that Ontario can’t afford to let people without marketable skills, decent housing and affordable child care fall behind.

In the McGuinty government’s first term, Matthews was the one Liberal MPP who would face hostile audiences to explain why her government wasn’t moving as fast as they’d hoped on poverty and to assure them that, when the deficit was gone, the province’s social safety nets would be rewoven.

She is indefatigable. The mother of three grown children earned her PhD while representing her constituents and serving as parliamentary assistant to the minister of community and social services.

She is respected within the party. She co-chaired the Ontario Liberal election campaigns in 1987 and 1995 and served as party president from 2003 to 2006. Her brother-in-law is former premier David Peterson.

And she has the right combination of patience and tenacity to get things done. Her easygoing manner masks a strong will.

None of this means Matthews will be able to work miracles.

She doesn’t control the government’s purse strings. If Finance Minister Dwight Duncan isn’t prepared to provide the resources to back up the poverty reduction targets that Matthews and her cabinet committee set, she will have trouble delivering on her government’s pledge to tackle Ontario’s social deficit.

She doesn’t control the political agenda. If McGuinty doesn’t make poverty reduction a priority throughout his second term, Matthews will find herself on a lonely and thankless crusade.

She may not be able to control her own work schedule. As minister of children and youth services, she is responsible for adoption, autism, child care, foster care, early learning and services for aboriginal youth. Without a cadre of capable and energetic officials, Matthews will have difficulty carving out time for poverty.

And she doesn’t control the economy. If the manufacturing sector keeps shedding jobs and the high dollar keeps hammering exports, Matthews may have to slow her pace and stretch out her timetable.

All that said, her appointment was the best signal McGuinty could have sent to anti-poverty activists yesterday.

They trust Matthews. She’s always been honest with them, even when she knew she was going to disappoint them. She has always been willing to listen and take their suggestions back to Queen’s Park.

They believe she’s better equipped than anyone else in the Liberal caucus to flesh out the premier’s vague election pledge to set poverty reduction targets into a workable plan.

And they’re relieved they won’t have to start afresh with a minister who doesn’t understand the file, doesn’t know the key players and doesn’t know what it’s like to live on a welfare income that barely covers the rent, let alone food.

From her earliest days at Queen’s Park, Matthews has fought to wipe out the stigma that social assistance recipients face. She has worked to make the welfare system less punitive, less condescending and less judgmental.

She hasn’t achieved these goals, as she would be the first to attest.

But, armed with a mandate from the premier and a seat at the cabinet table, she is eager to prove that poverty can be beaten.