International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

The global theme for 2025 is: “Ending social and institutional maltreatment by ensuring respect and effective support for families.” This means that institutions like schools, hospitals, welfare offices, and courts must stop treating poor families as problems to manage and start treating them as people deserving of respect and real support. The theme is a reminder that poverty is a consequence of policy, and it demands accountability for the ways poverty is sustained through systemic neglect, control, and disrespect. It asks societies to look beyond income and confront the deeper harm inflicted when families are dismissed, silenced, or punished by the very systems meant to protect them. 

The theme calls out a reality Canadians are living today, where 4.9 million people – roughly 1 in 7 – live in poverty, with experiences varying sharply across the diverse identities. For example, Indigenous peoples face a poverty rate of 17.5% and racialized communities 14%, compared to 8.5% for non-racialized Canadians, showing how systemic inequities concentrate hardship. 

“Poverty is not a personal failure; it is a systemic one — a denial of dignity and human rights.” – UN Secretary-General António Guterres

Why Poverty Exists: Systems and Structures

Since capitalism teaches that the rich are “deserving,” “hardworking,” and “smart” and that poverty is shameful, lazy, and a moral failure, aligning with billionaires feels safer even as the system is stacked against them. 

Government policies often mirror these imbalanced, unrealistic narratives. Tax cuts for corporations, privatization of public services, and short-term benefits sustain inequality rather than reducing it. Economic success stories are celebrated while structural barriers remain ignored and the system continues to function as designed: keeping those with privilege comfortable and those without in a cycle of survival. Poverty persists because exhaustion is profitable, and survival independently has been made the achievement of those most affected.

How Poverty Manifests: Social, Political, and Material Effects

Poverty begins with the most basic needs: shelter and food. 1 in 5 renter households now spend more than half their income on rent and food insecurity has reached alarming levels. In the North, food costs are 50-60% higher than the national average, forcing many to go without. These constant financial pressures cascade into health crises: Canadians living below the poverty line face double the rates of chronic illness, and racialized and Indigenous communities experience much higher levels of mental distress linked to economic hardship and discrimination.

For children, these basic deprivations interrupt development and opportunity. Children from low-income households are three times more likely to leave school early, and just over 50% of Indigenous youth graduate on time compared to nearly 9 in 10 of their non-Indigenous peers. Educational gaps compound into limited futures, perpetuating cycles of poverty across generations.

Poverty also creates social exclusion. Those struggling to survive cannot afford to participate in cultural and community life. In 2025, nearly 1 in 4 Canadians said they could not afford to take part in community activities, and racialized people were twice as likely to feel unwelcome in public places. For Indigenous and racialized communities, this exclusion carries the added weight of racism and erasure. Poverty, in this sense, is isolation enforced by cost and discrimination. Stigma and shame reinforce this silence, as poor people are too often described as lazy, irresponsible, or uneducated; labels that make their struggles easier to dismiss. These assumptions hide the reality of low wages, unsafe work, and unaffordable housing behind myths of personal failure. Stigma makes it harder to ask for help, and it gives institutions permission to neglect those in need without accountability.

This exclusion from the community extends into political silencing. Low-income people are consistently underrepresented in decision-making, and their participation is limited not by disinterest but by a system that ignores them. Voter turnout among Canada’s lowest-income residents is roughly 20% points lower than among the wealthiest, and only 1 in 10 people living in poverty believe that government policies reflect their needs. This exclusion from civic life allows inequality to persist unchecked, as those most affected by it have the least power to change it. 

Across every dimension, poverty narrows lives. It limits opportunity, undermines dignity, and divides communities between those who can build stability and those who are always one crisis away from losing it. 

Who Is Most Likely to Be Poor

These effects are not distributed evenly across Canada. The people most likely to experience poverty are those already marginalized by systems designed to exclude them. 

For Indigenous Peoples, poverty began with dispossession. Indigenous peoples experience heightened poverty rates rooted in colonial policy and decades of underfunding. Federal audits show gaps of up to 30–40% in per capita spending on housing, healthcare, and education compared to other Canadian communities. On reserves, conditions are even starker as many communities lack adequate housing, clean water, or local employment. 

Racialized Canadians face compounding barriers built into hiring, pay, education, and housing systems. Nearly half (45%) reported experiencing discrimination in the past five years. Bias in these areas traps many in low-paying or unstable work. For these communities, poverty is both economic and social, a reflection of systemic racism that determines who is seen as belonging and who is not.

Gender layered onto these inequities deepens poverty. On average, white women earn $0.71 for every dollar earned by white men, while racialized and Indigenous women earn about $0.59. Additionally, single mothers experience poverty at three times the rate of single fathers. For many women, poverty looks like exhaustion trying to hold together households the system refuses to support while choosing between food, rent, and childcare on a single paycheque.

People with disabilities face barriers that add to poverty. Roughly 1 in 4 Canadians with a disability lives below the poverty line, while assistance payments fall far short of actual living costs. Rising expenses for healthcare, mobility, and housing force many into chronic financial strain, trapping them in poverty that disability programs are supposed to help, but don’t alleviate.

Newcomers and refugees experience poverty masked as opportunity. Foreign credentials go unrecognized, skilled professionals are pushed into low-wage work, and newcomers are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed in their first five years despite holding similar credentials to Canadian-born workers. Systems claim to welcome newcomers, but in practice, keep many excluded.

The poverty among these groups is the predictable outcome of systems that concentrate hardship where discrimination, exclusion, and structural barriers already exist. Until those systems are dismantled, poverty will continue to follow the same patterns it has for generations.

Evidence of Systemic Failure: What Policies Haven’t Worked

If the systems creating and perpetuating poverty were actually designed to reduce it, we would see different outcomes. Instead, government policies, economic structures, and public institutions continue to produce inequality even as they claim to reduce it. 

Income support programs designed to protect people from hardship remain far below the cost of living. In Ontario, a single adult on Ontario Works receives about $733 a month, while the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment exceeds $1,300 – leaving a shortfall of over $500 before food, transportation, or utilities. Governments have the capacity to raise these rates but choose not to, preferring instead to manage poverty rather than prevent it. The result: these programs keep people one step above the crisis but never secure.

Housing initiatives have failed to reach those most in need due to political priorities that favor market solutions over public responsibility.  Over 235,000 people experience homelessness each year, and nearly one-third are Indigenous. Despite large federal spending on affordable housing, most programs do not serve the populations experiencing the worst housing insecurity. Rent subsidies are swallowed by rising market prices, while construction of social housing remains far below demand because governments have privatized development and tied funding to corporate profit margins, proving that housing is treated as a commodity rather than a human right.

Food support systems have collapsed because pandemic-era temporary programs were never intended to be permanent, revealing the fragility of support built on crisis rather than commitment. The gains from pandemic relief vanished, exposing how easily governments abandon people when emergency pressure disappears. In 2025, 1 in 4 Canadian households struggled to afford food – the highest level ever recorded. Indigenous and Black households face the worst of it: more than 50% of Black families and over 40% of Indigenous families report some level of food insecurity. Adequate nutrition could be guaranteed through policy, but instead, as corporate food prices soar, governments choose to cut income support.

Child welfare policies have failed to break cycles of poverty because they are designed to manage poor families rather than lift them out of poverty. The poverty rate for Indigenous children living on reserves stands at 37.4%, compared to 10.8% for non-Indigenous children. When children grow up hungry, underhoused, or excluded from opportunity, it reflects not individual failure but institutional abandonment, and the institutions responsible continue to receive the same inadequate mandates, ensuring the cycle persists.

Settlement and integration programs for newcomers and refugees remain inadequate because recognizing foreign credentials and providing enough integration support would require redistribution of resources and power. Many remain underemployed, or they are shut out of stable work by discrimination that goes unchallenged. In 2022, about 20% of recent immigrants were living in deep poverty despite contributing to Canada’s economy. Economic integration programs are underfunded by design because full inclusion would threaten existing labor hierarchies and wage structures that benefit those already privileged.

The criminal justice system reflects and perpetuates this inequality rather than addressing it, because addressing poverty’s root causes would challenge the structures and systems that benefit some while leaving others behind. Indigenous people make up roughly 5% of Canada’s population yet represent over 30% of those incarcerated in federal prisons. This overrepresentation is the outcome of systemic inequity in policing, sentencing, and a complete absence of social support that might address the root causes of poverty and crime. Instead of prevention, the system chooses punishment, ensuring cycles of poverty and incarceration deepen for Indigenous communities and communities of color.

Moving Forward: Solutions

This International Day for the Eradication of Poverty calls on us to recognize injustice and to act. Each delayed decision, each half measure, and each refusal to address inequity deepens inequality and strips people of dignity. To end poverty, Governments must stop with the empty promises and instead raise wages to match the cost of living, invest in public housing and childcare, and ensure that healthcare and education are accessible to all. Policy design must begin with the voices of those most affected — Indigenous peoples, racialized communities, disabled people, and low-income families — whose lived experiences reveal what real solutions demand. As individuals, we can take action by challenging narratives that frame poverty as a personal failure, challenge laws and practices that deepen inequality, hold elected officials accountable for the choices they make and support organizations fighting poverty. Some organizations you can follow and support include:

• Canada Without Poverty (CWP): Works with people with lived experience of poverty to advocate for income security, affordable housing, and policies that address systemic barriers.
• Project Genesis – Anti-Poverty Committee (Québec): Organizes low-income residents to challenge welfare and housing policies, run community workshops, and push for programs that directly benefit people struggling to make ends meet.
• Community Action Network (CAN) – BC Poverty Reduction Coalition: Trains people with lived experience of poverty to become advocates, lead campaigns, speak publicly, and influence government policies on wages, housing, and social services.
• Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC): Delivers programs and advocacy focused on housing, food security, and economic opportunities for Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people to ensure solutions are culturally relevant.
• Indigenous Prosperity Foundation: Empowers Indigenous women, youth, and entrepreneurs through business mentorship, training, and funding to promote economic self-determination and community-led development.

Support these organizations, amplify their work, and join efforts to dismantle the structures that allow poverty to persist. Speak out, vote with conscience, and demand policies that guarantee security, dignity, and opportunity for all families.

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