Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to hear the minister's comments and connections validating the relevancy of child poverty in this issue. It is very important and the minister did a good job of detailing some of the issues and the connections that are happening here.
I would like to ask a question with regard to child poverty. We know that in the year 1989 the House of Commons passed a unanimous resolution to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Since then it has gone up 21%. Fortunately we have seen some improvements over the last couple of years, but it is still up 21% since that vote happened in this chamber. That is unacceptable.
What happened during that timeframe when we had billions of dollars of surpluses? We have no affordable housing program and we know from the facts that affordable housing is a key element to ending child poverty. Will the minister agree to support $1 billion per year to create new units as campaign 2000 as many people have advocated in this country to help eliminate child poverty and put action where it really matters?