CPI Forum
Contribute to the conversation about poverty in Canada. To submit a guest blog, email povertyinstitute@ambrose.edu .
A Beacon In the Storm: 2025 CPI Impact Report
Without a doubt, 2025 was a difficult year for many Canadians. After falling steadily for many years, poverty rates again started to climb. The challenge of finding affordable housing deepened, with an estimated 67,000 people being homeless on any given night. Meanwhile, 2.2 million people relied on a food bank, the highest number ever recorded. Finding decent work was a further challenge contributing to the financial burden many families faced. Disruptions in global trade along with the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) contributed to rising unemployment. For those who did have work, for too many it was precarious: part-time, unstable, low-wage and without benefits. This may explain why 1 in 5 people who visited a food bank were working.
Over the past year, the Canadian Poverty Institute has been working with partners across Canada to deepen our understanding of the roots of poverty in order to make meaningful systemic change.
Read more about CPI’s work to address the realities of poverty in Canada in 2025.
Immigrants Make Alberta Strong and Free
Like all Canadians, Albertans share core values of hard work, a love of freedom and peaceful coexistence. The opportunities that Alberta provides to get ahead through work, to be free to live life in whatever way we choose, and to be at peace regardless of who we are, where we come from or how we look is what has drawn people here for generations - from across the country and around the world. Indeed, this has been the very foundation of Alberta’s success.
Canada is a country of immigrants. And within Canada, Alberta even more so. Immigrants have been drawn to Canada and Alberta precisely because of these values. Like all Canadians and Albertans, immigrants share a deep commitment to the values of hard work, freedom and peaceful co-existence. And our success as a country and province rests on the way we have upheld these values over generations as successive waves of immigration have made Alberta home.
Yet, recently, the value of immigration and the contributions of immigrants are being questioned. Misperceptions about immigration abound leading some people to feel that immigration is a problem rather than the source of our strength. The Canadian Poverty Institute offers some thoughts on the immense value of immigration and the misperceptions surrounding it.
Insurance For All: Managing Risk in an Age of Disasters
The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports that 2024 was the costliest year in Canadian history, with a record $8.5B in insured losses related to severe weather events. To account for growing risk, insurers have raised home insurance premiums. While these increases are a burden to many households during a period of heightened financial insecurity, they’re particularly problematic for lower-income households. As climate change progresses and the risks associated with it grow, ensuring all Albertans have access to appropriate and affordable insurance coverage will be a pressing public policy issue.
Racism and Poverty: The Material, Social and Spiritual Scars of Discrimination
A Reflection on the 60TH Anniversary of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
Sixty years ago, the United Nations adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This was a landmark document that affirmed the dignity, equality and inherent rights of all people regardless of racial identity. As stated in the Convention “… any doctrine of superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and there is no justification for racial discrimination, in theory or in practice, anywhere …” The Convention goes on to state that “…the existence of racial barriers is repugnant to the ideals of any human society…”.
Institutional Mistreatment and the Right to Refuge
A Statement by the Canadian Poverty Institute on the 2024 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (October 17)
Today, October 17th, is the United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This year, the focus is on social and institutional mistreatment of those experiencing poverty. The United Nations calls this “a widespread but often ignored aspect of poverty” adding that this “hidden violence, which includes stigma, discrimination, and the denial of basic human rights, causes deep harm to individuals and communities already struggling with poverty.”
The Canadian Poverty Institute shares this concern. In particular, we highlight the gross violations of human rights experienced by those who are homeless. In particular, we once more draw attention to the risk to life and security of the person posed by severe weather. As winter approaches we renew our call to municipal governments to enshrine a right to seek refuge in public spaces during severe cold or other dangerous weather.
Dignity for All in Practice: A Reflection on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
Dignity for All in Practice is the theme of the 2022 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. As stated by the United Nations “The dignity of the human being is not only a fundamental right in itself but constitutes the basis of all other fundamental rights.” Poverty compromises human dignity in multiple ways.