Mr. Speaker, child poverty continues to be a national disgrace in Canada. Numbers released today by Campaign 2000 confirm that 10 years after the House of Commons unanimously passed the NDP resolution to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, Canada still has over a million children living in poverty, and for many the situation is worse. The depth of poverty for two parent families now averages $10,000 below the poverty line.
The rate of child poverty may be decreasing slowly but after the many years of prosperity we still have a situation in Canada where one in six children is more likely to see the inside of a food bank than share in that prosperity.
Canada cannot solve this problem by limiting its own revenue through further tax cuts, nor can it continue to pretend that cutting programs like EI and affordable housing will help to solve the problem of poor children in our communities.
What Canada and Canada's kids need is a real commitment to expand the child tax benefit, bring in a national affordable housing strategy and implement a national strategy of early childhood education and care.