Question Period Note: CHILD POVERTY

Campaign 2000 report on child poverty in canada

All Canadians, especially children, should have a real and fair chance to succeed, which is why our Government is taking action to tackle poverty through Canada’s first Poverty Reduction Strategy and measures such as the Canada Child Benefit (CCB).

Our Government is committed to giving families more money to help with the high costs of raising their kids. The CCB is simple and generous, and gives more money to families that need it most.

The number of children living in poverty has declined each year since 2015.

Campaign 2000 Report

Campaign 2000, a national coalition that advocates for Canadian children and families, released a report ‘No One Left Behind: Strategies for an Inclusive Recovery,’ on November 24, 2021, focusing on child poverty in Canada.

Amongst other things, the report claims that at the current rate of poverty reduction it will take another 54 years to eradicate child poverty. Campaign 2000 recognizes that policies such as the CCB had positive impacts, however, they believe progress has stalled in recent years.

The report calls on the government to implement bolder policies and expand existing benefit programs including addressing financial constraints for low-income children in Canada’s National Childcare Plan, improving care work and implementing a national pharmacare plan.

Canada Child Benefit

The Canada Child Benefit (CCB), which is delivered by the Canada Revenue Agency, is:

Simple—families receive a single payment every month;

Tax-free—families will not have to pay back part of the amount received when they file their tax returns;

Targeted to those who need it most— low- and middle-income families receive more benefits, and those with the highest incomes receive lower benefits; and

Generous— on average, families benefitting from the CCB received about $7,300 in CCB payments for the 2020-21 benefit year.

In the previous benefit year (July 2020 to June 2021), the CCB provided support to about 3.5 million families and over 6 million children, putting over $25 billion, tax free, in the hands of Canadian families. Most families receiving the maximum CCB amounts are single-parent families, with over 90% of them being single mothers.

To ensure that the CCB continues to help Canadian families over the long term, since July 2018, the CCB has been indexed to keep pace with the cost of living.

Indexing the CCB means Canadian families will have more money to help keep up with rising costs for things like healthy food, sports programs and music lessons. With this increase, in the 2022–2023 benefit year, the maximum annual benefit is $6,997 per child under 6 years of age, and $5,903 per child aged 6 through 17. Families with less than $32,797 in adjusted family net income receive the maximum benefit. Both the maximum benefits and the income thresholds will be indexed in future years.

To provide support for Canadian families facing hardship as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Government provided additional temporary support, including:

A one-time enhancement to the CCB payment amounts of up to $300 per child for most families, in May 2020; and,

Up to $1,200 in 2021 for each child under the age of six for families already receiving the CCB, in the form of the temporary CCB young child supplement.

The Children’s Special Allowance (CSA) is a tax-free monthly federal benefit paid in respect of children under the age of 18 who are in the care of federal, provincial/territorial or First Nations agencies and institutions. The CSA is equivalent to the maximum (unreduced) amount of the CCB, plus the Child Disability Benefit, where applicable. The one-time enhancement of $300 to the CCB in May 2020 also applied to the CSA – that is, the CSA was increased by $300 per child for the 2019-20 benefit year, delivered as an increase to a CSA payment for a child for the month of May.

To ensure that all eligible families are able to access the CCB, and other federal benefits, Budget 2018 provided $17.3 million over three years, starting in 2018–19, to expand outreach efforts to Indigenous communities, and to conduct pilot outreach activities for urban Indigenous communities. In 2020, ongoing funding was provided to make these initiatives permanent and, in 2021, the Government worked to make simplified credit and benefit returns and CCB forms more widely available to Indigenous peoples.

The Department of Finance is the policy lead on the CCB, and the Canada Revenue Agency administers the benefit. ESDC contributes to ongoing policy development by working collaboratively with them and with provincial and territorial governments, to help ensure that the CCB continues to result in strengthened systems of support for all low- to middle-income families with children across Canada.

Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy

On August 21, 2018, the Government of Canada released Opportunity for All: Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Opportunity for All includes a target to reduce poverty by 20 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2030 relative to 2015 levels. These targets are legislated under the Poverty Reduction Act.

The Government met its interim target of reducing poverty by 20 percent by 2020. In fact, according to the Canadian Income Survey, the poverty rate decreased by 30 percent from 2015 to 2019. This underscores the progress being made towards the Government’s goal to cut poverty in half by 2030.

Results from the 2020 Canadian Income Survey show that the overall poverty rate in Canada, as measured by Canada’s Official Poverty Line, was 6.4% in 2020, down from 10.3% in 2019. This represents a 56% decrease in the poverty rate compared to 2015 (14.5%), the baseline year for measuring results towards Canada’s legislated poverty reduction targets. There were close to 2.7 million fewer people living in poverty in 2020 compared to 2015.

The official poverty rate for children under 18 decreased between 2015 and 2020. There were approximately 333,000 children in poverty in Canada in 2020 (4.7%), meaning that approximately 782,000 fewer children were living in families in poverty in 2020 relative to 2015. While the decrease in children’s poverty between 2019 and 2020 is largely attributed to temporary COVID-19 emergency benefits (including additional payments made through the CCB), the poverty rate for children has been decreasing since 2015.

Summary of Child Poverty Statistics - 2015 to 2020 Based on Canada's Official Poverty Line (2018 MBM base)

Year

Number of Children in Poverty

Child Poverty Rate

Cumulative Percent Reduction in Number of Children in Poverty Since 2015

Year Over Year Percentage Point Reduction in Child Poverty Rate

2015

1,115,000

16.3%

2016

965,000

13.9%

13.5%

2.4%

2017

818,000

11.7%

26.7%

2.2%

2018

744,000

10.6%

33.3%

1.1%

2019

665,000

9.4%

40.4%

1.2%

2020

333,000

4.7%

70.1%

4.7%

None