Mr. Speaker, in my community of Hamilton, almost 100,000 people live in poverty. That is almost as many as the number of constituents in my riding of Hamilton East--Stoney Creek. That is shameful.
Successive Liberal and now Conservative governments have failed to make a dent in poverty and have failed to even define a marker for poverty, making it easier to push off the responsibility for tackling the root causes.
News this week has been full of reports calling Toronto the poverty capital of Canada and of our failure to eliminate child poverty right across Canada.
Poverty activists and agencies such as the United Way, as well as organizations like Campaign 2000 know what needs to be done. There are examples of strategies that focus on poverty reduction, like Hamilton's Roundtable on the Elimination of Poverty, and in the work of groups like Vibrant Communities that know what to do, and so does the NDP.
Fix employment insurance. Restore the minimum wage at $10 per hour. Set up national child care, home care and pharmacare programs. Confront homelessness. Make education affordable. Seek fairness for groups such as women and aboriginals who disproportionately face poverty.
It is time to fight poverty with real initiatives for real results.