Research: Poverty in Canada

Every October, CPJ releases our annual report on poverty in Canada, Poverty Trends. These reports highlight the unequal effects of poverty on racialized people, single-parent families, single seniors and adults, children, persons with disabilities, and Indigenous peoples. We also report on poverty rates of provinces, territories, and communities across Canada. Using the latest data from Statistics Canada and research reports by advocacy groups across the country, Poverty Trends provides us with a snapshot of poverty in Canada from year to year. We maintain that poverty is a violation of people’s inherent rights and dignity and that the Government of Canada has a legal and moral obligation to take action to end poverty and inequity. In Poverty Trends 2021 we build on the 2020 report's intersectional analysis of people's rights and realities in Canada. Canada follows persistent and predictable trends in terms of who is most likely to be poor, and what impact poverty is likely to have on people and communities. These trends have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic as those living in poverty and precarity were disproportionately affected by inadequate access to healthcare, food insecurity, and inadequate housing.  This report explores why these inequitable trends in poverty persist, and what fundamental changes are needed to rehabilitate our socioeconomic “ecosystem” so that all people’s rights and dignity are honoured. Taking a narrative approach, Poverty Trends 2021 gives us a current overview of poverty in Canada, highlighting both promising tools and problematic inequities in many poverty reduction efforts so far.