CDB and the Poverty Line

We are regularly asked what the poverty line is – and unfortunately there’s no simple answer. Canada’s Official Poverty Line is made up of 66 separate poverty lines, calculated by Statistics Canada, based on the size of the community and uses something called the Market Basket Measure. It’s calculated for a family of 4, and then further calculations are done for individuals and couples. These are the poverty lines in the largest city in each province, calculated monthly:

Province	City	Individual	Couple	Couple & 2 kids
NL	St. John’s	2,210	3,094	4,420
PEI	Charlottetown	2,213	3,098	4,426
NS	Halifax	2,290	3,206	4,581
NB	Fredericton	2,225	3,115	4,450
QC	Montreal	2,018	2,825	4,035
ON	Toronto	2,397	3,356	4,794
MN	Winnipeg	2,211	3,095	4,422
SK	Saskatoon	2,262	3,167	4,524
AB	Calgary	2,413	3,378	4,826
BC	Vancouver	2,423	3,393	4,847
YK	Whitehorse	2,593	3,630	5,185
NWT	Yellowknife	2,929	4,100	5,858
NV	Iqaluit	5,075	7,104	10,149

In the regulations for the Canada Disability Benefit, a lot of the amounts are given annually, so this is the same information, given as an annual poverty line:

Province	City	Individual	Couple	Couple & 2 kids
NL	St. John’s	26,519	37,126	53,037
PEI	Charlottetown	26,553	37,174	53,106
NS	Halifax	27,483	38,476	54,966
NB	Fredericton	26,703	37,384	53,405
QC	Montreal	24,212	33,897	48,424
ON	Toronto	28,766	40,272	57,531
MN	Winnipeg	26,532	37,145	53,064
SK	Saskatoon	27,146	38,004	54,292
AB	Calgary	28,955	40,536	57,909
BC	Vancouver	29,082	40,714	58,163
YK	Whitehorse	31,110	43,554	62,220
NWT	Yellowknife	35,147	49,206	70,294
NV	Iqaluit	60,896	85,254	121,791

If you would like to learn more about the poverty line in your community, you can find it on the Statistics Canada website link here.

Poverty and food insecurity in your riding

Click here for the wonderful resource by our friends at Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC) allows you to gether a number of statistics within your riding. Simply type in your address, and it provides statiscs on poverty, food insecurity, number of households, disability among other statistics. You can download the report. There is also a place to email your MP to tell them that Canada needs better income policies to reduce poverty and food insecurity!