My friend says “We are behind Albania”. I do not think we should compare ourselves with Albania. Of the western industrialized nations we are second from the bottom. We have been there for many years.
What is the government doing about it? Have things improved in the last year? Have things improved in the last two or three years? They have worsened over that time. Since 1989 more than half a million children have been added to the rolls of children living in poverty. This is bordering on immorality. This is simply unacceptable.
I suspect some of my friends will say that this is inevitable when we are trying to get the fundamentals in order. We hear that regularly. This is one fundamental that we do not have in order. When there are 1.4 million children living in poverty this afternoon, and the number will have grown by the time the weekend is over, that is not a country with its fundamentals in order.
I know the government will say that it has balanced the books. We will know the books have been balanced properly when all Canadians can balance their own books, and that is not the case today.
We should not rest easy because to accept this number of young people living in poverty is wrong. It is not to say that this is necessary. In some countries there are no poor children. In some western industrialized nations a poor child cannot be found. The reason a poor child cannot be found is that there are no poor parents.