Child poverty is climbing at rates never seen before in Canada.
Campaign 2000’s 2024 national report card highlighted that approximately 1.4 million children, or 1 in 5 kids, lived in poverty in 2022.
The report showed that in the last two years, Canada experienced record increases in rates of child and family poverty, nearly reaching a cumulative 5% increase or an additional 360,000 children who fell into poverty.
“The jump in poverty rates in 2021 was the first increase in 10 years, and the latest increase in 2022 was the largest on record, signalling a failure of the federal poverty reduction strategy to sustain progress made with the Canada Child Benefit and the temporary emergency pandemic benefits,” reads the report card.
The record-setting increase in child poverty rates between 2021 and 2022 saw 195,170 additional children enter poverty.
“The numbers in this report card are shocking, even to those of us who track this issue,” said Leila Sarangi, National Director of Campaign 2000 and lead author of the report card. Every province, territory and the City of Toronto have seen their largest annual increase in rates of child poverty within the last two years.”
The report showed that families are poorer than they were nine years ago, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first took office.
“Across all family types, families were living in deeper poverty than they were in 2015, the year the federal poverty reduction strategy measures progress from. Custom data shows that the Canada Child Benefit has lost its power to sustain poverty reduction and that income inequality among families with children is widening,” it said.
The Canada Child Benefit has been ineffective in reversing this trend with 2022 seeing the lowest reduction to date.
The Census Family Low Income After-Tax Measure defines poverty as below the median income of all tax filers. Families, in general, were $14,276 below the measure after tax in 2022, compared to $10,050 in 2015.
While child poverty increased in every single province and territory, the worst increase was in Nunavut, which saw a 6% rise. Ontario was the province that fared worst, with a 3.5% increase.
“It’s been thirty-five years since the federal government signed on to uphold all children’s rights and eradicate child poverty, but clearly, the federal poverty reduction strategy is failing. We are heading quickly in the wrong direction and failing our children, again,” said Sarangi.
The Conservative Party of Canada issued a press release highlighting the stark increase. The party showed that food costs have increased by 35% since 2015.
“No wonder that in the last two years, Canada saw 358,520 more children living in poverty than during the height of the pandemic in 2020,” said the party.
Recent data from Food Banks Canada showed that visits have increased 90% in the last five years. While 2022 saw 1.4 million children suffer from food insecurity, the number jumped to 1.8 million in 2023.
Food Banks Canada gave Canada a D- on its 2024 Poverty Report Card.
Nearly 60 recommendations were suggested to the federal government from the report card which Sarangi said should serve as an alarm bell and a call to action.