I'm on page 5, the slide entitled "Cyclical stability for children/adults and significant change for the elderly".
We'll be numbering the pages next time. I'm very sorry.
With respect to cyclical stability, you will note that there is a drop for persons 65 years and over. The line depicting persons 65 years or older went from 21% in 1980 to approximately 5% in 2006. The low-income cutoff for persons under 18 years has remained unchanged since the 1980s. The cutoff is pretty much the same. The level increased slightly for persons 18 to 64 years.
The following page should contain a table on persons 65 years and older; I've already spoken to this.
Let us now go to page 7 that contains a table depicting trends in the provinces. You'll see three bars. This is a depiction of the 2006 data. With respect to trends in the life cycle, the market basket measure by Human Resources and Social Development, as well as the low-income cutoff used by Statistics Canada depict the same trends for the major age groups. However, there are differences from province to province. Why? For the market basket measure, transportation costs are included. In an urban setting, if there is public transit, one can suppose that bus passes are purchased. Within a rural setting, one can suppose that a person travels by car. In the Maritime provinces, where there are more rural than urban centres, we observe an increase in income.
You will also notice another difference in the provincial measures, particularly in Quebec. If you look at the market basket measure and what is generally published by Statistics Canada, Quebec is the only province where the market basket measure, depicted by the green line, is lower than the published low-income cutoff. Frank spoke about the geographical details, which is supplementary information. In the low-income cutoffs published by Statistics Canada, large cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are grouped together. Housing costs are different in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Therefore, under our low-income cutoff that averages data from large cities, the cutoff is a little bit higher in Quebec, but drops when using the market basket measure. Geographical data is more specific and may reflect the difference in housing costs. That is why there is a difference between the two measures, as regards Quebec. Similarly, the market basket measure is higher in Toronto and in Vancouver, as it takes into account higher rental costs.
With regard to life cycles, different measures give the same results. At the provincial level, for a given year, there will be differences. What is important is that trends in the provinces and specific population groups are studied over time. One also has to understand why some groups, from one year to the next, move above or below the cutoff, which groups are vulnerable and remain at the same level, regardless of the measure used.
My colleague, Garnett, will discuss these specific groups.