This discussion paper from the National Council of Welfare is designed to inform readers about some of the different ways poverty could be measured in Canada and also to give them a chance to pass along their views about poverty and poverty lines to government. There is a questionnaire at the end of the report that makes it easy to tell us - or the federal Minister of Human Resources Development or Statistics Canada or your own elected representatives - what you think.

     The paper arises in part because of sharp and continuing differences of opinion about the meaning of the "low income cut-offs" or LICOs of Statistics Canada and in part because of an initiative begun by the federal, provincial and territorial governments last year to develop alternative poverty lines based on the cost of a "market basket" of goods and services.

     The National Council of Welfare and most other social policy researchers in Canada have used the low income cut-offs for many years. We consider them to be a reasonable measure of poverty, but not the only reasonable measure. We are aware that some of our colleagues are very strong supporters of the LICOs and are very suspicious about the motives behind the decision by governments to develop market basket measures of poverty.

     We believe it is worthwhile having a full and open debate about the way we measure poverty. It remains to be seen, however, whether market basket poverty lines will eventually emerge as a useful alternative or as a complement to the LICOs. The uncertainty is reflected in the title of the paper, A New Poverty Line: Yes, No, or Maybe?

     The discussion paper is by no means the definitive word on the subject of poverty lines. It focuses on different ways of developing market basket lines, because it is governments that are promoting that particular approach. It does not deal with a number of other possible approaches. Neither does it deal with related and very important concerns about the unequal distribution of income and wealth in Canada.

     The Council has already participated in several discussions on poverty lines in recent months with colleagues in the social policy field. The director of the Council attended a workshop on poverty lines sponsored by Human Resources Development Canada, another workshop held in Vancouver by the income security and labour market committee of the Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia, and has discussed market basket lines with the group which developed "Acceptable Living Level" measures in Winnipeg. The work in Winnipeg was done by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Harvest food bank and seven low-income people working as consultants.

     The National Council of Welfare sponsored its own roundtable on market basket poverty lines in Hull, Quebec, on January 30, 1999. Guests at the meeting included members of anti-poverty groups from across the country, people from non-profit agencies who have developed market baskets of their own and officials of the federal government.

     Comments about poverty and poverty lines by the people who attended these meetings has helped us greatly in preparing the final version of this discussion paper. We hope that the people who read the paper will take a few minutes to tell us what they think about the way poverty is measured in Canada. The final pages of the paper contain a number of questions about poverty lines and additional space for readers to add comments of their own. We will publish the results of the survey later in the year.

Last Update:  2001 02 14