Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak on the motion of my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River. I want to thank her for all of her work on eliminating child poverty, the subject of the motion today.
Because this is the second hour of debate, I would like to refer to the text of the motion, which reads:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should work in collaboration with the provinces, territories and First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to eradicate child poverty in Canada by developing a national poverty reduction plan that includes: (a) making housing more affordable for lower income Canadians; (b) ensuring accessible and affordable child care; (c) addressing childhood nutrition; (d) improving economic security of families; (e) measures that specifically address the unique needs of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities; and (f) measurable targets and time lines.
In other words, it is about accountability.
It has been 25 years since Ed Broadbent's motion aimed at ending child poverty was passed unanimously by the House, and yet successive Conservative and Liberal governments have failed to act on this promise. With almost one million children living in poverty, almost half of whom are indigenous, surely it is time to end child poverty.
Dr. David Hulchanski, a professor in Toronto and a constituent of mine, has documented very precisely what is happening with the declining middle class and the growing polarization in our city of Toronto. He calls it a “three city” situation, where some at the very top are getting more wealthy, an increasingly shrinking group is staying at about the same level, and a growing number of people are falling further and further behind.
Childhood poverty is costly not only for the children affected in terms of their childhood experience of inequality, but also in terms of lost potential and social costs.
I should point out that Canada ranks 23rd on child poverty among countries in the OECD, which is a shameful record. If we want to set records, surely this is not one. One out of seven children in Canada lives in poverty, but if one is born aboriginal, there is a two in five chance that one will live in poverty. These are shameful numbers.
UNICEF Canada has written a report and recommends creating a children's commissioner and making the UN convention on child poverty enforceable in court. Canada ratified this international agreement in 1991, but progress remains very slow and spotty.
The UNICEF report makes a number of recommendations worth noting. As I said, one is to make the convention enforceable in courts. It also recommends developing a national action plan aimed at bringing Canada into compliance with the UN convention; holding a parliamentary review on the recommendations of the UN committee on child rights and the recommendation of the Senate's report on children; and including in child protection legislation everyone under the age of 18; and developing a program to educate children and others on the convention rights.
I would like to speak specifically to the sub elements of this motion.
First, there is an alarming situation now from the lack of affordable housing. There are 92,000 people in Toronto on the waiting list for housing. In my community of Parkdale—High Park, we see families who have to make the gut-wrenching decision to either pay the rent or put food on the table. They are going to keep a roof over their heads, and therefore we have community kitchens and food banks bursting at the seams. A number of children go to school hungry every day. This is shocking in a city as wealthy as Toronto.
I see families with two or three kids living in a one bedroom apartment because that is all they can afford. I see people living in Toronto community housing in substandard housing with serious maintenance problems with mould, water leakage, and appliances that do not work.
There are buildings in our community where the elevators do not work. We have serious problems.
We also have problems with the lack of effective rent control legislation, and companies get around the legislation. They get people out of the buildings and jack up the rent. The upshot is that people cannot afford to find a decent place to live. There is an explosion of new homes being built, but they are mainly private condos. Low-income people do not have the ability to buy these condos, and there is no affordable housing being built for them.
We also have a problem with co-ops that are finishing their housing agreements. These are not going to be renewed. We have people who were getting a subsidy, who were able to live in a decent place, a co-operative housing development, because they got a bit of a subsidy, and those subsidies have been lost. That is a huge dilemma for many in the city of Toronto.
Unfortunately, the Conservatives have abandoned their social housing responsibilities. One in four Canadian households, that is 1.5 million Canadians, families and individuals, spend more than a third of their income on housing. Canada is the only G8 country without a strategy for affordable housing. It was under the previous Liberal government that the national housing plan was abandoned. It is shocking that in a northern country, with such high needs, we do not have effective housing or even a plan to get to that housing.
When it comes to public spending on child care and early learning, Canada ranks last among developed and comparable countries. For years Liberal and Conservative governments have ignored this pressing need of Canadian families. There are over 900,000 kids in need of care in Canada, with no access to quality, affordable, child care spaces. The Conservatives promised 125,000 new spaces, but just like the Liberals, they did not create one single space.
In my community, child care spaces can run up to $2,000 per month, per child, which is clearly far out of the reach of most families. Noted economist Pierre Fortin has said that the Quebec model of child care, which is affordable, accessible, and high quality, has allowed more than 70,000 mothers to join the workforce and generate the return of $1.75 for every dollar spent on child care. That is clearly an important investment.
When it comes to indigenous children, they are the fastest growing demographic in our country. Investments made to reduce indigenous child poverty would have huge benefits for Canada. We have alarming rates of poverty and huge housing problems. Even Mike Holmes is saying that we have to build better quality houses for indigenous communities. It would be a better investment and more cost-effective. They also face huge food security issues, far more so than people do in the south.
I remember that noted Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, in answer to the question, “What is the best thing Canada can do to create innovation, boost our economy, and boost competitiveness and job creation?”, said to invest in children. Invest in child care. Invest in post-secondary education. Invest in kids. That is the best bet for a strong, innovative economy.
We want the federal government to make the elimination of child poverty a priority. We need to develop an anti-poverty plan with timelines and measurable benchmarks that would include the key components of taking on the crisis of poverty for indigenous children, making housing more affordable for lower-income Canadians, creating an early childhood and childhood education program, addressing childhood nutrition, and improving the overall economic security of Canada. We owe Canadians no less. It is our duty as parliamentarians to act. We should all be supporting this important motion.
