Thank you for your question.
First I'd like to respond to needs. All poverty measures, the LICO, the MBM, market basket measure, but also the material deprivation indicators, don't directly look at needs. Material deprivation indicators don't look at needs, but they talk about what we consider necessities in Canadian society. Then the LICO and the MBM look at the average costs of living, or the average needs, but the problem is your average Canadian is not your typical Canadian. There is a very large heterogeneity.
Income indicators try to connect by costing those minimum necessities or needs, in particular the LICO and the MBM. I agree with you. Material deprivation focuses on necessities, what outcomes are associated with a poverty-level living standard. If someone has higher needs, they might be more likely to have those poverty-level standards of living. They might not be able to afford the necessities, but they don't try to measure needs per se.
When it comes to the LIM, and this is broadly debated, how would you define poverty? What is your benchmark for analysis? Is it enough to meet a minimum and the minimum for what? Is it just to survive physically or to be part of society or is it how much less you have in comparison to what's typical, normal, and average?