QUESTION PERIOD — Finance

The greatest indictment of this government’s failure to build our natural resources within the economy is in UNICEF’s most recent report card on child and family poverty, which reveals that more than 30,000 additional children in Canada are living below the poverty line — a staggering child poverty rate of 26%. Under your new and old Liberal governments, Senator Moreau, child poverty has risen for the third consecutive year and remains alarmingly higher than Canada’s overall poverty rate, which is pretty bad. Worse yet, at your government’s current pace, it would take nearly 400 years to eradicate child poverty in this once great country.

Your government has already eradicated the hope of safer communities, affordable housing and stable paycheques for young adults. What assurances can you offer to Canadian children to reassure them that your government is not going to do the same for their future? It’s shameful that Canada stands so low when it comes to child poverty around the world.

Senator Moreau, I remind you that the other place has been consistently run by majority and minority parliaments of Liberal governments for at least over a decade. According to UNICEF, Canada’s child welfare has been eroding significantly since 2017. That’s nine years despite the many empty promises and inflationary spending of your government. With more children falling below the poverty line on the government’s watch for a decade, it’s really cheap to start blaming the opposition — which has been on the opposition benches — for your failures in government.