Child Poverty

Conservatives Refuse to Support NDP Motion to End Child Poverty

25 years ago, federal NDP leader, Ed Broadbent, tabled a motion in the House of Commons to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000.

Ed Broadbent, then leader of the federal New Democratic Party, put forward the motion back in 1989. Today, the 78-year-old says it’s unlikely he’ll see the end of child poverty within his lifetime.


“There’s no question we failed,” says Broadbent. “The desire was there for a while. But it didn’t persist, and I have my own theory about that and my own theory is that kids don’t vote. Adults vote.”