Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question that I raised in June in the House on child and family poverty. At that time, I talked about the fact that nearly 700,000 children in Canada were living in poverty. I asked the minister what the government was doing. The minister at the time acknowledged that the effects of the global recession had been increasing poverty in Canada. However, the substance of her answer did not indicate that there was any meaningful action being taken on the part of the government.
I want to refer to a September 2011 report from the Conference Board of Canada called “Child Poverty”. It essentially lays out why we should be concerned about child and family poverty in this country. The report had a couple of key messages. First, that Canada scores a C grade and ranks 13 out of 17 peer countries, that more than one in seven Canadian children live in poverty. When we talk about first nations, it is one in four children. When we are talking about children, of course, we are not talking just about children but about children and their families.
The report puts child poverty into context. The report indicates that children who experience poverty, especially persistent poverty, are at a higher rate of suffering health problems, development delays and behavioural disorders. They tend to attain lower levels of education and are more likely to live in poverty when they become adults.
The OECD says that failure to tackle the poverty in exclusion facing millions and their families is not only socially reprehensible but it will also weigh heavily on a country's capacity to sustain economic growth in years to come. That is very important because, of course, we will be relying on those children to become productive adults and support us in our old age.
The report had a question, “Is the child poverty rate declining in Canada?”. And, of course, no surprise to many New Democrats, the answer is, absolutely not.
In 1989, the House of Commons passed a unanimous motion to make child poverty history by the year 2000. Initially, there was a drop in child poverty but by the mid-2000s it had increased once again to 15.1%.
There are other countries that are taking meaningful action on that, one being the United Kingdom. It set out a 20-year mission in 1999 to end child poverty through a series a integrated policies, including strengthening early learning, education, affordable housing and health services, as well as raising the minimum wage and augmenting child benefits. It has had some success with those policies. As we can see, other western countries with similar kinds of systems that we have here in Canada have taken meaningful action.
The Conference Board of Canada did go on to state what Canada could do to become a leader on child poverty. It stated that the government needs to fund jobs training, provide child care and introduce things like tax incentives for lower-paid workers.
What concrete measures will the government take to eliminate child and family poverty in this country?