Madam Speaker, anytime is the right time to talk about poverty in Canada in this place. We should do it more and I wish we could have an allotted day or an emergency debate on poverty so that we could hear from more members of parliament.
This debate about poverty so far has been about taxes. People who are living in poverty do not pay taxes because they do not have an income.
I am a little disappointed because, as of yet, I have not heard one mention in this debate about the family. The member will know that lone parent families—and I say lone parent, not single parent—number about 12% of all families in Canada and account for about 46% of all children living in poverty.
Child poverty is a politically convenient term for family poverty. We have to understand that point fundamentally and we have to deal with it. If we are to deal with child poverty, family poverty, and we know that almost half of it is due to family breakdown in Canada, then the member should be prepared to deal with the reasons the Canadian family is under attack and the reasons the Canadian family is breaking down.
Divorce, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, adultery, and all kinds of other reasons for the family breaking down are the root causes of the majority of poverty in Canada. I want to know whether the member would agree and if she would encourage her colleagues in the House to start talking about the real fundamentals of poverty, the breakdown of the Canadian family.