Madam Speaker, in 2007 770,000 Canadians used food banks each month. Today one in nine Canadian children grows up in poverty. Research shows that for every dollar a country invests in giving children a good start in life, the country saves $7 in spending on health and other problems that arise when children's basic needs are not met.
How can the government claim to protect the vulnerable when it provides nothing in terms of the national child benefit supplement for families making $20,000, and for families living on $25,000 to $35,000 only $436, the equivalent of 12 days' rent for a one-room apartment in my Etobicoke North riding?