I just happened to notice that the 2024 Liberal government federal budget document (budget.canada.ca/2024/r…) contained this whopper:

"In 2015…the Canada Child Benefit was introduced, which has helped cut the child poverty rate by more than half."

It’s true that pandemic benefits did temporarily impact poverty rates. But the most recent available data available (www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1…) shows that the lasting effect was negligible.

Between 2016 (when the program was actually implemented) and 2022, the percentage of one-child families classified as low income dropped from 14.6 percent to 13 percent. The two-child family rate went from 11.4 percent to 10.2 percent, and three-child family rates fell from 17.9 percent to 16.8 percent. In other words, Canada Child Benefit has had an incremental impact - nothing close to “more than half”.

This data was already available when the 2024 budget document was written.