2009 marks 20 years — the span of an entire childhood — after the Canadian Parliament made a promise to end child poverty by the year 2000. Currently, 1 in 9 Canadian children still wonder where their next meal will come from, if they will have school supplies, and if they will have a warm bed at night. The promise was broken.
Campaign 2000 (named after the broken promise) is an organization dedicated to the advocacy of eradicating child poverty in Canada. Every year they write report cards to assess the nation’s progress in improving the state of child poverty. Sadly, the 2008 report reveals that “the nation’s child poverty rate is almost what it was in 1989 when Parliament unanimously resolved to end child poverty by the year 2000.”
That’s why activists have been vying to get Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to make poverty a priority on the upcoming budget. There is still time to sign an anti-poverty petition backed by these organizations before parliament resumes on January 26.












