Mr. Speaker, on December 4, 1998, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a report which dealt in part with poverty. Article 13 noted that although Statistics Canada's low income cut-off was widely used by experts to measure poverty the Government of Canada itself did not accept it as a poverty line.
The UN committee has therefore recommended that Canada establish an official poverty line so that we can measure and respond to the tragedy of poverty and be held accountable for our progress.
I encourage the government to quickly respond to the call of the UN to establish a credible poverty line so we can target our resources to relieve real poverty in Canada from sea to sea to sea.