Social prescribing is a means of connecting people to a range of community services and activities to improve their health and well-being. These services vary based on each person’s needs and interests, and can include food subsidies, transportation, fitness classes, arts and culture engagement,...

Banks in Canada are meeting the evolving preferences of their customers as powerful new technologies change the way people bank and how they pay for goods and services. Banking is transforming at a record pace, bringing innovation and new potential to empower Canadians’ lives in a digital world....

While much research has been conducted on how giving is correlated to factors like educational attainment or income level, the influence of ethnicity has been elusive. This research attempts to better understand how newcomers to Canada and second-generation Canadians perceive and approach giving...

The Social Assistance Summaries series tracks the number of recipients of social assistance (welfare payments) in each province and territory. It was established by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy to maintain data previously published by the federal government as the Social Assistance...

This guide brought together by the Indigenous Learning Circle (ILC) in Winnipeg's North End details how to conduct an Indigenous-grounded evaluation process. While not a comprehensive guide to complete an evaluation, the Bundle builds upon what is understood about evaluation and provides a guide...

The financial hardships households faced in the midst of the pandemic reveals the scale of the precarity that millions of households were experiencing well before the crisis began. This highlights the urgency of the need to reimagine our system of benefits—both public and private—to effectively...

The National Financial Empowerment Champions (NFEC) Project supported leading non-profit community organizations and their local partners to develop, implement and scale proven financial empowerment (FE) interventions across Canada with the aim of improving the financial well-being of over one...

In 2020, The Behavioural Insights Team partnered with United Way and Oak Park Neighbourhood Centre to develop and test an email intervention to increase participation in tax filing clinics. An "active choice" email (sample email) significantly increased response rate and attendance to virtual...

Canadians were more asset resilient just prior to the pandemic than they were at the turn of the millennium. That resilience continues to be tested as we enter the second year of the pandemic. For the purposes of this article, a household is asset resilient when it has liquid assets that are at...

Statistics Canada presents a demographic and social profile of Canada's diverse LGBTQ2+ communities based on published analyses. Much of the data in this release focus on LGB Canadians (lesbian, gay, bisexual), since Statistics Canada has been collecting detailed information on these communities...

Each year, some Canadians fall into low income, while others rise out of it. For example, over one-quarter (28.1%) of Canadians who were in low income in 2017 had exited it by 2018. This study examines the low income exit rate in Canada—an indicator that can be used to track the amount of time it...

Momentum is a changing-making organization located in Calgary, Alberta that works with people living on low incomes and partners in the community to create a thriving local economy for all. In 2008, Momentum launched the StartSmart program to support families living on low incomes to open...

This report delves into one of the community investment trends that emerged during the pandemic: innovative partnerships. This research follows the Wake Up Call study, released in the Fall of 2020, and continues to answer the question of: how can corporate philanthropy do better, and do...

The Province of Ontario, through the former Ministry of Community and Social Services (now known as the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS)) entered into a contract with Prosper Canada (PC) in 2015 to fund the Financial Empowerment and Problem Solving (FEPS) pilot project....

The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS) with funding from Ontario Works (OW) contracted with Prosper Canada (PC) in 2016 to launch the Financial Empowerment Champions (FECs) project. The project intends to build capacity (e.g., embed financial empowerment (FE) interventions)...

The Canada Emergency Response Benefit program (CERB) was introduced to provide financial support to employees and self-employed workers in Canada who were directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article examines the proportion of 2019 workers who received CERB payments in 2020 by various...

An important aspect of the impact of COVID-19 is its disproportional impact across gender. This Insights article proposes a year-over-year approach that compares employment from March 2020 to February 2021 to their March-2019-to-February-2020 counterparts. It uses the Labour Force Survey to...

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how production occurs in the economy in two ways. One is the full or partial closure of non-essential activities such as travel, hospitality, arts and entertainment, personal services, airlines, etc. The other is the widespread shift from in-office work to...

An analysis of provincial/territorial health care funding and funding for First Nations and Inuit by Indigenous Services Canada through the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch. This report provides an analytical overview of federal and provincial/territorial government health spending for the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the varying labour market experiences and outcomes of diverse groups of Canadians. To mark Asian Heritage Month, Statistics Canada is providing a profile of the employment characteristics of the three largest Asian populations in Canada: South Asian, Chinese...

April Labour Force Survey (LFS) data reflect labour market conditions during the week of...

The evolution of the wealth, assets and debts of various groups of Canadians since the late 1990s has been documented in several studies. Yet little is known about the evolution of the wealth holdings of unattached men and women aged 50 and older, who make up a large part of the population. This...

In September – October 2020, the Trans PULSE Canada study team conducted the COVID Cohort to assess the social, economic, and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on trans and non-binary people in Canada.  This dashboard serves as an interactive tool for community members and researchers to...

This infographic shows the size, scope, and economic contribution of charities and nonprofits across...

In 2019, non-profit organizations (NPOs)—serving households, businesses and governments—employed 2.5 million people, representing 12.8% of all jobs in Canada. The employment share ranged between 12.4% and 12.8%, increasing during the 2010-to-2019 period. While the economic and social...