Mr. Speaker, I recently organized a round table meeting with some of the leaders of Hamilton's immigrant support organizations to discuss how we can better help settle new Canadians into our community.
One of the key priorities raised is the chronic high unemployment and increasing poverty among immigrant families. Fifty-two per cent of recent immigrants to Hamilton live below the poverty line, a shocking and shameful figure that belies the government's claim to support new Canadians.
This is not the first time Hamilton's poverty has been identified. Last spring the Hamilton Income Security Working Group reported to a United Nations meeting in Geneva that tens of thousands of Hamilton's children are living in poverty. That report made it clear that the responsibility for this urgent and desperate crisis falls to our governments which refuse to help with sufficient affordable housing, promised job opportunities and effective child benefit programs.
Poverty is a cancer in my community and across our country. We owe it to all Canadians current and future to work to eliminate it.