How Can We Measure Poverty in Canada?

This past Canada Day, as I watched the CBC and some of the festivities happening around Canada, I could not help but notice that Canada loves to celebrate its diversity. And surely Canada’s diversity is something to be celebrated! However, it also represents one of the main challenges to measuring poverty.

The diversity in this country is an obstacle because it eliminates any single measure of poverty. Poverty is different between the many components of Canadian society: it is different between a rural community in Saskatchewan and downtown Toronto; it is different between a northern Aboriginal community and a fishing town in Newfoundland; it is different between a recent Indian immigrant and a third generation Canadian; it is different between an individual and a family of four; it is different between a senior living in low-income housing and a child in the midst of Canada’s foster system. Canada’s expansive geography and its diversity of people make measuring poverty extremely difficult.

How then can we hope to create an adequate poverty indicator to accurately measure poverty and ensure the success of a poverty reduction strategy? What measure would be satisfactory without creating inflexible borders that do not reflect the characteristic of poverty in Canada?

To start, it is important that we look at the poverty measures that are typically used today. Probably the most known include the Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICOs), Low Income Measures (LIMs), and various Market Basket Measures (MBMs). Basically, all three of these poverty indicators measure one thing: low income. Each of these indicators can be manipulated to either represent a higher low income threshold or a lower one, depending on someone’s personal belief regarding poverty. However, is it adequate to simply measure low income and thus declare poverty to be a simple lack of money?

Low income is certainly an important aspect of poverty, but measuring low income is not enough to accurately reveal who is living in poverty. Aspects of poverty include housing, health, education, access to resources, transportation, and employment. Moreover, these aspects of poverty must be cross-examined between geographical areas of Canada (rural/urban, province, east/west/north, etc) and between family or individual traits (such as ethnicity, gender, age, single parent, large family, etc). And even further, a good measure of poverty must include some indicator of the depth and consistency of poverty, realizing that poverty can be generational or deeply embedded in a community.

Of course, it is all fine to suggest that we need to measure all these aspects of poverty to accurately determine the extent of poverty in Canada, but is such an extensive measurement feasible?

I think we can successfully measure the many aspects of poverty; however, we cannot hope to find a single mathematical formula that can place impoverished people and their communities into a simple box that we can then throw money at in hopes that poverty will vanish. Instead, attempting to measure so many indicators requires diversity among the solutions as well. We can measure income, health, education, housing, and employment. We can measure those aspects of poverty in the communities and families within Canada. Each indicator can be measured – among individuals and families, or between geographical regions, or among various ethnicities, and even historically – to determine the extent of poverty and its depth.

When each poverty indicator is moving in the right direction, perhaps then Canadians can begin to boast about this country. Then we can celebrate the diversity of Canada, while also recognizing our common dignity and responsibility.

For more information on an extensive list of poverty indicators visit Guy Palmer and Mohibur Rahman’s discussion paper on Ireland’s poverty indicators.

Jordan Stellingwerff was a CPJ intern last spring.  Jordan has since graduated from Trinity Western University.