A new report on poverty challenges both Liberals and Conservatives

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre understandably seized on a new report card released last week by Food Banks Canada that highlighted the number of Canadians who are living in poverty, struggling to pay their bills and turning to food banks for help.

«Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal prime minister's taxes, debt, inflation and promises, Canadians are literally hungry,» Poilievre said in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau predictably responded by pointing to the support programs his government is rolling out — including funding for child care, dental care and a new school food program — and warned that a Conservative government would only cut such initiatives.

«These are investments that they are opposed to and that we are there to help Canadians with,» Trudeau said.

In fact, the findings and recommendations laid out in last week's report present a challenge for both Liberals and Conservatives.

As the report notes, poverty in Canada declined markedly between 2015 and 2020 — the share of Canadians living below the poverty line fell from 14.5 per cent to 6.4 per cent. A report released by UNICEF last December found that Canada experienced one of the largest proportional drops in child poverty among developed countries between 2012 and 2021.

Some of that reduction in poverty can be attributed to policies like the Canada Child Benefit, introduced by the Trudeau government in 2016. The income support programs launched at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic actually helped to drive poverty in Canada even lower.

But that progress has eroded over the last few years; in 2022, the poverty rate was back up to 9.9 per cent. The report also points out that 23 per cent of Canadians are