Mr. Speaker, today is World Food Day. This year's theme is “Fight hunger to reduce poverty”. Hunger is the most critical manifestation of poverty. Eliminating hunger is the first step toward reducing poverty and ensuring food for all.
Around 800 million men, women and children are chronically hungry. Hunger causes illness and death, robs people of their potential to work, cripples children's learning capacity, and undermines the peace and prosperity of nations. Raising public awareness about the problems of hunger and food insecurity is necessary in the fight against hunger.
At the World Food Summit in 1996 nations including Canada committed themselves to cutting by half the number of hungry people by 2015. This November governments, NGOs and other international agencies will meet to review the progress made and consider ways to accelerate efforts to reach this goal.
On this occasion let us strengthen our solidarity in the struggle to make sure that everyone on the planet has enough to eat.