David Sweet on Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

With regard to Chart 2.1 on Page 27 of the Fall Economic Statement 2017 and specifically the chart titled “Nearly 300,000 Children Lifted Out of Poverty”: (a) what income level was used as the poverty line for the chart; (b) if the income level used in (a) differentiates between regions, what are the various income poverty lines used for the chart, broken down by region; (c) does the government consider families who’s income is slightly higher than the poverty line to be “middle-class”; (d) is there a classification for income levels which is between “poverty” and “middle-class” and, if so, what is that classification known as and what is the associated income level; (e) of the “nearly 300,000”, what is the breakdown by (i) province, (ii) municipality; (f) as of what date are the figures referred to in (e) representative of; (g) what was the start date to which the figures in (e) were compared to in order to make the 300,000 claim; and (h) what is the government’s definition of poverty and what official measure is used to track it?