Mr. Speaker, November 24, 1989 saw this House unite in a rare gesture of solidarity around a matter of national urgency and unanimously pass a resolution expressing its common desire to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000.
Despite this clear and, I repeat, unanimous resolution, Canada now has 500,000 more poor children than it did in 1989. In fact, the child poverty rate has increased from 14.5% to 21%, meaning that one child in five now lives in a poor family.
I find these statistics alarming and once again urge the Minister of Finance to give priority to children in the next federal budget by indexing the national child benefit, among other things.