Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. member's speech concerning the issues around child poverty. Would he care to comment on some of the material that was contained in a graph in the finance committee report, which states effectively that there has been a general improvement since 1996 in the income of low income situations? The incidence of low income families with children went from 15.8% in 1996 down to 11.4% in year 2000. The absolute number of children on the low income threshold went from 1.1 million to 867,000.
The member and I would probably agree that one is too many, but would he not say that there is significant progress? Would he not agree that in 1996, 14% of everyone was below the low income cut-off line, where in the year 2001 it was 10.4%? In other words that is a 25% improvement. With children it is a 31% improvement over the same period of time, 1996 to 2001. In Ontario there was a 30.9% improvement, from 12.3% down to 8.5% of people below the cut-off line.
One of the more disturbing issues, however, is with respect to a single female parent. There was a significant improvement of 31% decline over that same period of time, but still a fairly significant and persistent problem with poverty and single parenthood.
I put it to the hon. member that over this period of time, coincidentally a period of time in which the government ran surpluses, there was a significant improvement in the lives of some of Canada's most vulnerable people.