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Canada’s national poverty rate climbed for the fourth year in a row to 10.2%, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.
Blacklock’s Reporter says new methods of calculating poverty expected this year would push the rate even higher, to 10.9%.
In its Canadian Income Survey 2023 Final, the agency reported about four million Canadians lived below the poverty line last year.
An additional 10 million — 25.5% of the population in the province s— experienced some level of food insecurity, an increase of nearly 1.3 million people from the previous year and the third consecutive annual rise.
The figures for 2023 reflect a continued reversal of progress made earlier in the decade.
In 2020, the national poverty rate hit a record low of 6.4%, one year after Parliament passed the Poverty Reduction Act, which aimed to cut poverty in half by 2030.
Regional disparities remain sharp. Québec posted the lowest poverty rate among provinces at 7%, while Nunavut recorded the highest at 43%. Other high rates included the Northwest Territories at 17%, and Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia at 12.9%. Most other provinces fell between 10% and 12%, with Alberta at 9%.
StatsCan also confirmed that its method of calculating poverty is undergoing revision.
The updated approach — known as the 2023 base Market Basket Measure — will include additional household costs such as telecommunications. Based on these changes, the national poverty rate would rise 0.7 percentage points to 10.9%.
“Poverty thresholds are defined for different regions across all Canadian provinces and territories and adjusted for different family sizes,” the agency noted.
“Families’ thresholds are then compared with their disposable income to determine their poverty status.”
When introducing the Poverty Reduction Act in 2019, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it a historic step, pledging to achieve the lowest poverty level in Canadian history.
“We have delivered in lifting hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty,” he said at the time. “We are continuing to demonstrate leadership.”
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