Yes, Mr. Speaker, too many Canadians are poor. Certainly nobody in the House takes any joy in that.
Prior to coming to parliament I used to work with an organization called Youth in Conflict with the Law. Many of the people we worked with were before the courts due to poverty and lack of opportunities.
What I said in my speech was that the situation is Canada has improved greatly since 1993. All members of the House must work together to make sure that trend continues. Child poverty is very much an important concern of the government. If he examines the budgets over the last number of years, he will see we have spent $2 billion to fight in that endeavour. We will continue to do more.