After years of rising hardship, Canada may be turning a corner. Food insecurity remains at record highs, but early signs of progress—like easing housing pressures and new federal programs—offer hope. The challenge now is follow-through: ensuring programs are adequate, accessible, and targeted to those most in need. With federal priorities shifting toward fiscal restraint and defence spending, provincial and territorial action is more important than ever. This report card offers both a reflection point on the past year and a clear roadmap to help Canada cut food insecurity in half by 2030.   

In last year’s report card we reported on 27 recommendations, including three from previous reports that were fully acted on. Very little progress was made in the context of the remaining 24 to address critical priorities and improve income security and close infrastructure gaps in northern communities.   

In 2024, federal policy action concentrated on three relevant points:  

1. Finalizing the design of the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) in advance of its launch later this year . This included announcing $1.4 billion per year in funding for the benefit. The benefit has significant eligibility restrictions and will deliver a maximum of only $200 per person per month. The CDB is a welcome first step given the longstanding absence of the federal government from this area of income security policy, but it is grossly inadequate. Estimates suggest it will lift only about 25,000 persons with disabilities out of poverty.  
2. Updating and establishing the details of the government’s updated national housing plan , which includes billions in additional financing for affordable and market-rent housing construction.   
3. Rolling out a national school food program . Although the program does not directly address food insecurity by removing its structural causes, this type of program has been shown to improve educational outcomes among people living in lower-income households and provide moderate affordability support for vulnerable households. The latter point is relevant as a response to food cost inflation and was core to the government’s premise for fulfilling this prior platform commitment.  

Many of these actions provide important new contexts for how to think about addressing poverty in Canada. Collectively, however, we expect there will be little improvement in poverty rates until or unless there is a change in the trajectory of key contributing factors such as the ongoing need for millions of affordable housing units and more enduring income security reform to help households living on low incomes with the high cost of essentials.   

The shift toward slower population growth is perhaps the single most meaningful action government has taken over the last year to address the conditions of poverty. Given that rates of growth in some provinces exceeded 3% in 2023 alone , reducing the inflow of new residents will allow social infrastructure such as housing to catch up with current needs. The shift in rental and housing costs, along with falling interest rates, will support an easing of financial conditions for Canadians. But in real terms, this provides only basic breathing room. Structural reform remains crucial.  

Earlier this year, the 45th federal election was held. It resulted in the return of a Liberal minority government under new Prime Minister Mark Carney. Because of the timing of threatened tariffs from the United States, the election unfortunately did not focus heavily on issues of poverty reduction and there were no direct new commitments from the government on proposed improvements in Canada’s income security system, other than a commitment to modernize Employment Insurance (EI). While this responds in part to our longstanding calls to enhance EI, there is no indication to date about how this commitment will play out.     

We have seen significant announcements from the federal government about increased financing for affordable housing, the introduction of an aggressive public lands strategy so that more units can be built faster and more cheaply on the federal balance sheet, and help for non-profit and community housing partners to acquire and retain housing units so they are not taken over by corporate landlords. These are all welcome new components of the national housing plan.   

Moreover, the Prime Minister’s proposed new approach to establish a federal public builder program under a new agency, Build Canada Homes (BCH), is a potentially game-changing initiative. BCH is supposed to leverage public land and the mass production of housing, including modular housing, to fill gaps for low-income Canadians and create hundreds of thousands of new units.  

Other government commitments — for example, the proposed 50% reduction in development charges for multi-residential developments and the introduction of new tax and financing incentives for purpose-built rental units —respond directly to recommendations made in the 2023 and 2024 poverty cards.  

The federal government has also heeded our previous calls to reform Nutrition North. In early spring, it announced an external review of the program . It is imperative that the government’s commitment to reform and enhance the program is advanced as a priority in the lead-up to Budget 2025.  

A small but important action not to be missed is that in December, the federal government committed to move ahead more aggressively with the implementation of automatic tax filing . This move would help low-income Canadians access benefit programs such as the Canada Child Benefit.   

During the election campaign, Mark Carney committed billions in new funding to develop trade corridors and apprenticeship training programs, accelerate the development of Canadian defence capabilities, and build extensive dual-use social and economic infrastructure in order to improve Canada’s domestic sovereignty. These “nation-building projects” could lead to meaningful improvement in the prosperity and standard of living of many impoverished and remote communities, particularly in Northern Canada. But such projects must be undertaken  purposefully with the goal of strategically developing local educational capacity, improving social infrastructure such as housing which is critical to domestic sovereignty, and using the projects as an opportunity to close gaps in economic participation.  

Finally, we must address the potential economic consequences of a trade war with the United States. If more broad-based tariffs are imposed by either side, inflation may increase (at least temporarily), which could cause significant economic damage and endanger many jobs. Governments will have to ensure that low- and middle-income households are adequately protected in such circumstances — this includes the need to think strategically about income security assistance, offsetting tax and tariff relief in the form of how tariff revenues are recycled in the economy, and implementing strategic policies such as housing and infrastructure investment to improve social and economic resilience.  

Income security  

• Enhance the Canada Child Benefit (CCB)to reverse recent increases in child poverty . 100,000 more children are living in poverty today than in 2019 because poverty rates have increased since COVID-19. Families are facing significant affordability challenges and need more help than the newly announced middle-class tax cut can deliver. Future budgets should prioritize new investments to enhance the world-leading CCB platform as a means of both reducing and eradicating child poverty.  
• Commit to reviewing the adequacy and accessibility of the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) within 18 months in collaboration with provinces and territories. Now that the CDB has launched, it must be enhanced on an ongoing basis — just as child benefits have been improved over time, leading eventually to the creation of the CCB — so that persons with disabilities can live in dignity and with an income that reflects their true costs of living.  
• Legislate comprehensive inflation protection for all federal benefits and tax credits and require provinces to sign non-clawback agreements as a condition of future social transfers .  
• Immediately introduce a Groceries and Essentials Benefit to help Canadians with low incomes who are struggling today . In accordance with the model introduced by the Affordability Action Council, this benefit should be introduced using the already effective GST tax credit policy lever.  
• Modernize Employment Insurance (EI). Move forward urgently with the promised modernization of EI. This process must prioritize a simpler, fairer, and more effective system that:  
• includes precarious, self-employed, and gig workers  
• reduces qualifying hours and expands Working-While-on-Claim so that more people are able to qualify and get back into work more easily  
• extends benefit duration to up to 52 weeks so that those affected by job loss are adequately covered  
• creates a permanent income stream for displaced older workers (aged 45–65) affected by industrial or trade-related changes.
• Legislate the commitment to implement automatic tax filing. Automatic tax filing has the potential to unlock billions in benefits that many low-income and vulnerable Canadians qualify for but do not receive. This project has been hampered by the collective inaction of the Canada Revenue Agency and its corporate partners. Budget 2025 should move quickly to make this commitment a reality by putting it into law and removing barriers to data-sharing between CRA and provincial social assistance authorities so that all low-income Canadians can benefit.  
• Review all federal policies, including the design of EI, housing benefits, and tax credits, to ensure they recognize and respond to the unique challenges of the growing number of Canadians who live alone and are therefore more likely to live in poverty. In the short term, allow all households with low incomes to have access to the non-cash benefits that are currently only available to those on social assistance (e.g., childcare subsidies, affordable housing supplements, drug and dental insurance).  

Build Canada Homes

• Move quickly to establish Build Canada Homes (BCH) with a focus on the creation of a public builder model that leverages federal ownership of public land in order to build hundreds of thousands of new units of housing with a primary focus on low-income and vulnerable Canadians . The promise of building at scale and at speed must be honoured — there is no time to waste. BCH must be properly prepared and empowered to set a pace of building tens of thousands of new units every year within 18–24 months.  
• Establish a national housing accord with provinces and municipalities. To implement the government’s commitment to reduce development charges by 50% on multi-residential development, Ottawa should leverage a national framework with provinces and territories so that this funding can go further by unlocking excess municipal reserves, matching provincial investment in enabling infrastructure — for example, water, transit, and roads — and critical operational areas such homelessness programming, and accelerating planning reform of zoning codes. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix housing. We must make the most of it.  
• Ensure that the implementation of a Multi-Unit Residential Building tax incentive includes affordability conditions. Ottawa is poised to reintroduce a once highly popular and effective tax incentive that played a critical role in the 1970s and 1980s in the creation of tens of thousands of units of modestly priced market rental housing. This is a welcome step forward, but it must be done strategically to ensure that it does not simply further proliferate the number of purpose-built rental units that are far beyond the means of many working-poor families. The federal government has an opportunity to set conditions around the design of the tax deduction so that it drives capital in a strategic way to create a balanced housing market.  

Food Insecurity

• Adopt a national commitment to cut food insecurity in half by 2030, tracked using the Household Food Security Survey and aligned with MBM poverty thresholds. The process should include considering the introduction of an essentials and groceries benefit in addition to other policy changes to help improve access to quality and affordable food.  
• Implement a food affordability impact assessment for all new tariff measures and trade disputes, especially those involving food staples, to avoid worsening food inflation .  
• Create a low-income food resilience strategy to mitigate the impact of any retaliatory tariffs by :  
• expanding Nutrition North and food subsidy programs  
• increasing CWB or GST credit top-ups during periods of food price shocks  

Nutrition North

• Fully redesign Nutrition North Canada in partnership with Indigenous communities to ensure targeted food costs relief and transparent local accountabilit y.
• Transform the Northern Residents Deduction into a refundable, progressive benefit for low- and modest-income households .  

Economic inclusion and sovereignty     

• Prioritize dual-use infrastructure development in Northern communities in order to improve sovereignty and reduce social inequities. With billions of dollars about to be spent on defence and trade-diversifying infrastructure, it is vital that the federal government leverage these once-in-a-generation investments to help reduce endemic levels of poverty in many Northern communities. This action includes prioritizing northern housing, improving road and port access so that lower-cost food and goods can be delivered, completing or introducing high-speed Internet connections and access, and creating comparable health and education institutions.   
• Require federal infrastructure projects to support good quality jobs, with significant apprenticeship opportunities. As the federal government embarks on a massive new investment plan for nation-building projects, it is vital that these projects deliver high-quality jobs for Canadians, particularly young Canadians who are facing a declining labour market. These projects must include key commitments to providing unionized employment, access to apprenticeship training opportunities, and high wages.  
• Improve the Canada Workers Benefit (CWB) by raising benefit levels and better integrating it with provincial tax credits such as Ontario’s Low-Income Individuals and Families Tax Credit (LIFT) . As Ottawa undertakes a review of federal spending, it is crucial that new fiscal spaces created from efficiencies be used to enhance programs such as the CWB which have a positive impact on labour force attachment, productivity, and poverty reduction.