ant to look into this issue in order to develop the right social policies.
             There is an ongoing debate and discussion among researchers, policy makers and social commentators as to the appropriate measurement of poverty. As of yet, Canada has no official definition of poverty. Many social policies have used Low Income Cut-Offs (LICOs) to measure poverty. During the most quantitative analysis of poverty Canada has relied on annual cross-sectional surveys. Income and poverty is measured over a one-year period, following the calendar year. However, this may not be the best choice since episodes of poverty may be of shorter duration. Therefore, a woman with adequate income in the first half of the year, but inadequate income in the second half may be counted as not poor from the viewpoint of the entire year (Ruggles 1990). Another problem is the limited ability of the surveys to show anything about poverty in the long term. If the numbers remain the same from year to year then it is hard to tell whether these are the same women or others in the population. Ruggles suggests that most people in poverty remain in poverty from year to year (1990:105). But in order to plan a successful policy it is important to know whether people are persistently in poverty or temporarily, because the causes and the consequences may demand different policy response. So, how many actually live in poverty in Canada?
             According to new data from Statistics Canada indicates almost 1 in 10 Canadians is considered poor. In its first detailed, national picture of what happened to income in Canada during the recession, the agency says the poverty rate edged up in 2009 to 9.6 percent. This is the second straight year that poverty has grown after more than a decade of steady declines. About 3.2 million people now live in low income, including 634,000 children (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/06/15/poor-canada-poverty-statistics-canada_n_877311.html). That is a stag...