Question Period Note: CAMPAIGN 2000 : 2025 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada

Release of Campaign 2000’s 2025 Annual Report Card: Investing in Tomorrow : A Future Without Poverty . On February 25, 2026, Campaign 2000 released its 2025 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada which highlights that poverty rose for a third consecutive year, with nearly 30,000 additional children falling into poverty. The report indicates that child poverty has more than doubled since 2020 to 10.7% (802,000 children) according to the Official Poverty Line. Using the Census Family Low Income Measure After Tax (CFLIM-AT), the report notes that 18.3% of children, nearly 1.4 million, lived in poverty. This broader measure is used throughout Campaign 2000’s report.

The report notes that child poverty rates are now approaching levels last seen in 2017, signalling an erosion of the gains made after the introduction of the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) in 2016. According to the report, it would take nearly 400 years to eliminate child poverty in Canada at this rate of change.

Campaign 2000’s report highlights that 2.5 million children in the provinces lived in food insecure households. The number of children in severely food insecure households doubled between 2019 and 2023.

There was a mixed pattern of increases and decreases in the child poverty rates across provinces and territories, with Quebec recording the largest annual increase, and Nunavut seeing the largest decrease but still recording the highest poverty rate along with the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Campaign 2000 reports that poverty is unevenly distributed and disproportionately experienced by marginalized groups. Nearly 1 in 5 children under 6 live in poverty and 45.2% of children in lone-parent families live in poverty, compared to 10.1% of children in couple families. More than half of children living on reserve were in poverty in 2023.

Income inequality among families with children widened. Campaign 2000 found that the top 10% of families with children had an after-tax income of nearly 19 times more than the bottom 10% of families with children, larger than in previous years.

The report calls for a detailed federal action plan with new and expanded programs, timelines and budgets to reduce and eliminate poverty, creating a new CCB End Poverty Supplement, investments in childcare, housing, health and mental health care. It also calls for reducing income and wealth inequalities using a more progressive tax system, ensuring that wages and benefits work together to lift families above the low income threshold, address systemic discrimination and ensure benefits and services are accessible and meeting the needs of marginalized families.

Supporting families and ensuring that every child gets the best possible start in life are priorities for the Government of Canada.

This is why we introduced programs like the Canadian Child Benefit (CCB). The CCB provides support to about 3.5 million families, including over 6 million children, putting approximately $30 billion, tax free, in the hands of Canadian families each year. Most families receiving the maximum amounts are single-parent families, with approximately 90% of them being single mothers.

Our efforts are showing results : according to the most recent data, in 2023, child poverty was 31% lower than in 2015.

The Government is also delivering $10-a-day child care and creating new child care spaces. We are supporting thousands of families who can’t bring their kids to the dentist with the Canadian Dental Care Plan. With our new National School Food Program, we are setting up children for success by making sure they can learn on a full stomach.

Furthermore, the Government announced the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit to help make groceries and essential items more affordable for Canadians, including families with children.

But we know that too many children continue to live in poverty, which is why the Government will continue to look for ways to support families and their children.

If pressed on how Budget 2025 is supporting low-income families: 

Budget 2025 proposes several measures that will benefit low-income Canadians and support poverty reduction. This includes measures like: 

implementing the Automatic Federal Benefits for low-income Canadians who don't file their taxes either because they don't have the resources or because they think that their income is too low for it to matter. This measure will begin with the 2026 tax year and is expected to benefit 5.5 million low-income Canadians by the 2028 tax year. 

launching Build Canada Homes to increase the supply of deeply affordable housing for low-income households 

making the National School Food Program permanent, helping participating families with two children saving an average of $800 per year on groceries. 

These and other Budget 2025 measures build on the tax cut announced earlier this year to help hard-working Canadians keep more of their paycheques. It provides tax relief for nearly 22 million Canadians, saving two-income families up to $840 a year in 2026. 

Campaign 2000 was created in 1991 to increase public awareness and monitor progress on the 1989 unanimous House of Commons’ resolution to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Campaign 2000 is a non-partisan, national network of 120 local, regional, and national organizations interested in child and family issues, committed to eradicating child poverty in Canada.

Campaign 2000 has been tracking progress against child and family poverty through annual report cards since 1991. Campaign 2000 uses the Census Family Low Income Measure-After Tax (CFLIM-AT) to measure poverty. It is a relative measure of low income which sets a low-income line that is 50% of the median national income whereas the Market Basket Measure (the basis for Canada’s Official Poverty Line) sets a poverty line based on the cost of a basket of goods services that individuals need to meet their basic needs and achieve a modest standard of living in communities across Canada. Due to these methodological differences, these measures yield different results.

2025 Report Card Content and Recommendations

The 2025 Report Card, contains over 60 recommendations in total. These recommendations relate to: the Poverty Reduction Strategy, government transfers, First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, racialized and immigrant children, youth, pharmacare and public health, income inequality and fait taxation, housing, decent work, and childcare. Six national recommendations from the report are to:

Strengthen the federal poverty reduction plan with detailed action plan describing new and expanded programs, timelines and budgets to reduce, and eventually eliminate, poverty.

Restore the effectiveness of the Canada Child Benefit with the new CCB End Poverty Supplement.

Protect families from market failures by investing in public expansion of child care, housing, health and mental health care.

Ensure wages and benefits work together to lift all families above the low income threshold.

Address systemic discrimination in poverty reduction initiatives. Ensure income benefits and public services are available, accessible, and meeting the needs of diverse and systematically marginalized families.

Reduce income and wealth inequalities by ensuring the tax system is sufficiently progressive to support income adequacy and equity.

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