Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily - Canadian Income Survey, 2023, released 2025-05-01

For close to two years, Statistics Canada, along with Employment and Social Development Canada, has been working towards updating or "rebasing" the Market Basket Measure (MBM). The Poverty Reduction Act stipulates that the MBM should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure it keeps reflecting the up-to-date cost of a basket of goods and services representing a modest, basic standard of living in Canada. This is done through comprehensive reviews of the MBM, which include extensive consultations with the stakeholder community and ensure that the MBM always uses the latest available data and methods. A rebasing typically results in a change to the poverty thresholds. Therefore, the poverty rates generated by the new base year are not directly comparable with the poverty rates generated by the previous base year. For clarity, the rebased poverty measure is referred to as the "2023-base MBM," while the existing measure is referred to as the "2018-base MBM."

On May 1, Statistics Canada released the discussion paper, "The proposed methodology for the 2023-base Market Basket Measure of poverty," which describes the proposed 2023-base changes for both the MBM and the Northern Market Basket Measure (MBM-N). It also compares the official 2018-base MBM and MBM-N poverty rates and thresholds with the preliminary 2023-base poverty rates and thresholds, and it prioritizes outstanding research topics. Following the release, a short review period will be held to discuss the results with the public, as well as academic, non-governmental, provincial and territorial partners. This review will allow time for feedback and any final recommendations to be received, after which the proposed 2023-base methodology will be updated (if necessary) and will become final in fall 2025.

As the comprehensive review is not yet complete, these results should be treated as preliminary.

• At the Canada level, the proposed 2023-base poverty threshold would be 2.0% higher (in inflation-adjusted terms) than the 2018-base threshold. Levels in the new base are higher primarily because the cost of the basket was rebased using updated census and price data.

• The 2018-base poverty rate was 10.2% in 2023, while the 2023-base poverty rate would be 10.9% for the same year.

• In addition, 2023-base poverty thresholds are produced back to 2020, covering a period during which the poverty rate was increasing following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the 2018-base poverty line, the number of individuals in poverty increased by 1.614 million (+68%) from 2020 to 2023. Meanwhile, according to the preliminary 2023-base poverty line, this number increased by 1.696 million (+66%).

For more information regarding Canada's Official Poverty Line, refer to Opportunity for All: Canada's First Poverty Reduction Strategy.