Legislation aimed at reducing child poverty was introduced by the Ontario government on Wednesday, but it sets no specific targets, leaving each individual government to set its own goals.

"What we are doing by way of legislation is requiring that all governments have a target of their own, adopt a strategy of their own," Premier Dalton McGuinty said.

"It hardens up our collective commitment to address poverty."

The bill won't enshrine into law Ontario's goal to reduce poverty by 25 per cent within five years or include penalties for missing the target, McGuinty said.

"When it comes to poverty, I don't think we are going to be judged on the basis of any one particular bill," he said.

"We'll be judged on the basis of any progress we make when it comes to helping people who are living in poverty."

The government said in December it planned to lift about 90,000 Ontario children out of poverty by 2014, boosted in part by previously promised Ontario Child Benefit improvements and increases in the minimum wage.

The plan comes with $300 million in new money, but it also requires a $1.5-billion increase in federal transfers.

"It can't be achieved unless we have broad support, and we certainly need help from the federal government," McGuinty said.

"They've already taken a step forward in that direction, as you well know, in the last budget."

The federal budget promised to invest $400 million over two years for constructing social housing units for low-income seniors and $75 million over two years for building social housing units for people with disabilities.

Ottawa is also raising the level at which the National Child Benefit supplement for low-income families and the Canada Child Tax Benefit are phased out, providing a benefit of up to $436 for a family with two children.

However, the budget didn't include the $1.8 billion called for by poverty groups.

NDP critic Cheri DiNovo said the bill will mean little without targets or a willingness from the government to further raise the minimum wage or build more affordable housing.

"Presumably, we'll wait for the budget, but whatever the budget says, obviously, it's planning on the federal government stepping in, and that's no plan at all."

Progressive Conservative Tim Hudak said the legislation will allow future governments to make similarly vague promises.

"It's another fluffy McGuinty bill that will ultimately deliver nothing," Hudak said.

"The best cure for poverty is a good, well-paying job, and Dalton McGuinty's outdated tax-and-spend policies have chased some 275,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs from our province."

Deb Matthews, minister of children and youth services, said the legislation is deliberately vague to avoid binding future governments to a target set today.

"There are many groups at high risk of poverty that we were not able to address as fully as I would have liked to have done," Matthews said.

"If a future government decided that they wanted to focus on poverty amongst those with disabilities, they would need to be able to set a target that measured that."

There are more than one million people living in poverty in Ontario, including one in every nine children and teenagers.

McGuinty has promised help in the budget for the province's poorest but has declined to specifically address calls from anti-poverty groups that want the government to invest $2.4 billion this year and $2.6 billion next year on social programs.

Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador are the only other provinces with poverty-reduction plans, but Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have begun to consult on their own strategies.