November 3, 2024
Summary: There are great disparities in vulnerable Canadians’ access to CVITP services across Canada. This shows up clearly in different rates of participation in CVITP services between the provinces.
In this article, we look at the 2020 provincial poverty data Statistics Canada estimated using its Market Basket Measure or MBM. (At that time, Statistics Canada had yet to establish a separate MBM for the territories.) We compare this data with the CRA’s data on the number of CVITP clients served in each province during the 2021 tax filing season. From this, we calculate the percentage of those living in poverty who were served by the CVITP. (We use the generous assumption that all individuals served by the CVITP in 2021 were living in poverty in 2020.) This gives us what we call CVITP participation rates by province.
We rank the provinces in terms of their participation rates. The participation rates vary substantially, New Brunswick (43.4%) having the best participation rate and Ontario (17.4%) the worst, well below the rate for all the provinces combined (24.3%). In a forthcoming article, we try to explain why there are such large divergences in the participation rates between the ten provinces by analyzing the differences in CVITP results, infrastructure and productivity.
There are great disparities in vulnerable Canadians’ access to CVITP services across Canada. This shows up clearly in different rates of participation in CVITP services between the provinces.
The most recent data set from Statistics Canada on poverty within provinces and territories, dating from 2020, does not include any data on poverty within the territories.[i] This is because Statistics Canada, which has used the Market Basket Measure or MBM to determine poverty rates since 2018, only finalized its MBM methodology for the territories in 2022.
The table below shows the poverty rates for adults (18 years of age and older) by province in 2020. All these individuals were eligible to file a 2020 income tax and benefit return during the 2021 tax filing season.
We make the generous assumption that all the individuals who obtained CVITP assistance in the 2021 tax filing season to file their 2020 tax and benefit return season were living in poverty in 2020. The income ceilings recommended by the CRA be used by host organizations to establish eligibility for receiving free CVITP services lie above the official poverty line. Thus, some clients eligible to receive these services in 2021 were not living in poverty in 2020.
We compare the 2020 provincial poverty numbers with the CRA’s provincial numbers for CVITP clients served in the 2021 tax season. From this, we calculate the percentage of those living in poverty who were served by the CVITP. We call this percentage the participation rate.
In the table below, we rank the provinces in terms of their participation rates. As can be seen, New Brunswick has the best participation rate, with 43.4% of the province’s poor receiving CVITP services. At 17.4%, Ontario has the worst participation rate among the provinces, well below the rate for all the provinces combined (24.3%).
Why are there such wide divergences between the provinces in the proportion of people served of those living in poverty? In a forthcoming article, we try to answer this question by analyzing the differences in the participation rates between the ten provinces in the results achieved from CVITP service delivery, CVITP infrastructure supporting service delivery and CVITP productivity.
[i] A different data set from Statistics Canada was used for our article “The CVITP’s 2023 Coverage of the Impoverished in Canada” which shows the total number of those living in poverty in 2020 was 2,024,000. However, the CVITP participation rates derived from these two figures are not significantly different.