Madam Speaker, I am somewhat worried by the answer of the member for Davenport. He said that while eliminating child poverty is a goal, and I do not know that he used the word laudable goal but I think that was the intent in what he said, it was questionable whether it could be attained.
This is exactly the mentality that has created the failure of the government to make progress in the elimination of poverty domestically. It continues to be the appalling position of the government with respect to its failure to commit to making poverty history, globally.
The reality is, in the absence of having serious targets and timetables and serious strategies to eliminate poverty, we will not do it. Post-1989 the government committed to the eradication of child poverty. At that time, and I hope I am correct, child poverty was at 16%. What happened under the watch of the finance minister, it went to 18% by the year 2000, the year it was supposed to be eliminated.
During the exact same time period, the government of Sweden, among others, set a serious goal of eliminating child poverty and put in place targets, timetables and a specific plan for implementing it. It reduced a child poverty level roughly equivalent to Canada's, maybe a little less, down to 2%.
Would the member not agree that in addition to the kind of building block approach that he talks about, we cannot be taken seriously and we will not make serious progress in eliminating child poverty unless we set clear targets and adopt a comprehensive, multi-faceted strategy for eradicating child poverty?