Develop and implement a Poverty Reduction Strategy.

What success looks like

Fewer Canadians living in poverty.

Government's narrative on progress

The Government of Canada released Opportunity for All – Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy on August 21, 2018. The Strategy offers a bold vision for Canada as a world leader in the eradication of poverty, and is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty. It establishes, for the first time in Canada’s history, an official measure of poverty: Canada's Official Poverty Line, based on the cost of a basket of goods and services that individuals and families require to meet their basic needs and achieve a modest standard of living in communities across the country. Opportunity for All sets ambitious and concrete poverty reduction targets based on Canada’s Official Poverty Line: a 20% reduction in poverty by 2020 and a 50% reduction in poverty by 2030, which, relative to 2015 levels, will lead to the lowest poverty rate in Canada's history. Thanks, in part, to a number of investments such as the income-boosting effects of the Canada Child Benefit and the increase to the top-up to the Guaranteed Income Supplement for single seniors, the government has achieved its targeted 20 per cent reduction of poverty three years ahead of time, lifting over 825,000 Canadians out of poverty in 2017, including 278,000 children, compared to 2015. Through Opportunity for All, a National Advisory Council on Poverty is being put in place to advise the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development on poverty reduction and to publicly report annually on the progress being made on poverty reduction in Canada. On November 6, 2018, Bill C-87, An Act respecting the reduction of poverty was introduced and Second Reading of the Bill occurred on November 30, 2018. The government reaffirms its commitment to move ahead with legislation to entrench Canada’s Official Poverty Line, poverty reduction targets, and the National Advisory Council on Poverty into law.

Note: this is the government's own description, not an independent assessment.