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June 26, 1996
New study compares urban poverty rates
Ottawa -- The Canadian Council on Social Development is releasing today the most
comprehensive set of data that has ever been collated on urban poverty in Canada. A Statistical
Profile of Urban Poverty by CCSD researchers Clarence Lochhead and Richard Shillington,
documents poverty by family type, age, sex, disability, visible minority status and Aboriginal
origins for the 25 largest census metropolitan areas in Canada, as well as for the provinces and the
country.
The authors note some startling findings. For example:
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Four of the seven Canadian cities with the highest poverty rates are in Quebec.
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Two cities with similar dependence on the automotive industry -- Windsor and Oshawa,
Ontario -- have widely divergent poverty rates.
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Less than five per cent of the elderly are poor in some cities, such as Saskatoon, Regina
and Oshawa, whereas in other cities, such as Montreal and Quebec City, more than a fifth
of the elderly are poor.
"Our goal in compiling this book was to provide a source for researchers, planners and policy
makers to use in developing strategies to combat urban poverty. This is the first time that people
can compare the demographic profile of poverty in their own municipality with other profiles
across the country," says Lochhead.
The data source for the publication was the 1991 Census. The CCSD intends to repeat the project
using 1996 Census results, once they are available.
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A Statistical Profile of Urban Poverty - Related Material
Canadian Council on Social Development,
309 Cooper Street, 5th Floor,
Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 0G5
Tel: (613) 236-8977, Fax: (613) 236-2750, Web: www.ccsd.ca, Email: council@ccsd.ca
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