Mr. Speaker, in 1989 the House of Commons passed a resolution that our nation should strive to eliminate child poverty by 2000.
However, between 1989 and 1995 the number of poor children in the nation increased by 58%, resulting in more than 1.5 million children living in poverty. In my province of Newfoundland some 38,000 children live in families that are below the official poverty line and many of these children go to school hungry each morning. In other words, the problem has become worse since that 1989 resolution.
I call on the Government of Canada to significantly increase the Canada child tax benefit in the upcoming budget and to generally support initiatives by the Canadian School Boards Association to deal with the issue of hungry children in our schools.
The budget is in surplus. The time for talk is over and the time for action on child poverty is right now.