Former NDP leader Ed Broadbent called it "20 years of indifference" and urged the federal government to impose a 5% or 6% tax increase on Canadians who earn more than $250,000 to help solve the crisis.

If the $3.7 billion raised was directed toward the child benefit supplement, it would make a major onslaught on child poverty, he said.

One in 10 children still lives in poverty in Canada -- one in four in First Nations communities, according to a new report by Campaign 2000.

Broadbent said the 1989 goal to reduce poverty by the year 2000 was "entirely plausible," and blamed federal and provincial governments for a lack of leadership.

"There is no secret to this, we know how to reduce poverty," Liberal MP Mike Savage said. "We need the federal government to step up and accept responsibility."

Savage admitted successive Liberal governments didn't get the job done, but he said it's time to look to the future.

"I'm not here to say that everything that was done in the past was good. We didn't get to where we need to get," he said. Source.