Hon. Terry M. Mercer: Minister Gould, welcome to the Senate. Since its inception, the Canada Child Benefit has lifted about 300,000 children out of poverty and has helped reduce child poverty by 40% from 2013 to 2017. What I’m concerned about is the silly policies that we’re hearing during the debate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. How can good government policy like this be insulated against the partisan whims of an unlikely future Conservative government?

Hon. Diane Bellemare: Welcome, minister. Canada’s Official Poverty Dashboard of Indicators includes an indicator for youth, specifically the percentage of Canadians aged 15 to 24 who are not in employment, education or training. This indicator, known as NEET, sits at 11.4% in Canada, which is high, considering there is a labour shortage.

According to data from a recent poll I commissioned with Angus Reid, 64% of young people would support federal funding for a job pathway program that would be managed by the provinces. The European Union funds those types of programs through the reinforced Youth Guarantee, to reduce the NEET.

As the minister responsible for the poverty reduction strategy, would you be prepared to advocate for such a strategy to your colleagues? Also, how do you propose addressing this issue?

Hon. Karina Gould, P.C., M.P., Minister of Families, Children and Social Development: Thank you very much, Senator Moodie, for the question. As the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, I take particularly seriously the question of child poverty and what we can do. I’m particularly proud to be part of a government that brought forward the Canada Child Benefit. We’ve seen over 300,000 Canadian children lifted out of poverty, and those results are incredible. Of course, there’s still more work to do. There are a couple of initiatives that I’m particularly excited about. The first is the new dental care plan that we will be working on and bringing forward this year to provide dental care for children under 12. I hope that we can all agree that no child in this country should go without dental care. They shouldn’t have to go to the emergency room to get that dental care. So there is something that I’m quite excited about and I think will make a big difference.

The second one that I’m really keen to be working on, in partnership with Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, the Minister of Agriculture, is the national school food policy. Canada is one of the only OECD countries that does not have a national school food policy. So I’m working with her alongside many stakeholders in the country, because we don’t want any child in this country to go to school hungry. We know that when children don’t have enough food in their bellies, they struggle to learn. They struggle to be successful —

Hon. Rosemary Moodie: Welcome, Minister Gould. In my question today, I would like to focus on child poverty. You have the mandate, minister, for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through the delivery of Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy. As you are currently reviewing income supports for low-income families and children, what opportunities do you see now to improve the supports for these families?