Mr. Speaker, we are fortunate to live in Canada, a wealthy country. Most of the world's population is not so lucky and much of the world suffers from extreme poverty. Well over one billion people live in absolute poverty. Half of the world lives on less than $2 a day and 50,000 people a day die from poverty-related causes.
It is hard not to believe that we value the lives of the comfortable more than we value the lives of the poor when we allow this to continue.
I have spoken in the House before about my support for reaching the millennium development goals of 0.7% of GNI for international development. I believe it is a reasonable target for a rich country.
We can take a positive step by supporting Bill C-293 introduced by the member for Scarborough—Guildwood on Wednesday, which would ensure that Canadian development assistance is focused on poverty reduction, and send it to committee as soon as possible.
Canada has increased its development assistance, but we need to recognize the daily crisis of poverty in much of the world and our responsibility as a wealthy nation to work toward its eradication.