Key national indicators where Canada has made measurable progress since 2014

Theme	Metric	2014 baseline*	Latest reading	10-year trend
Poverty reduction	Persons below Canada’s official poverty line (Market Basket Measure)	14.5 % (2015—the first year MBM was tracked nationally) (Canada.ca)	7.4 % (2021) (Statistics Canada)	▼ -7.1 pp (≈ -49 %)
Education	Adults (25-64) with a college or university credential	54 % (2014) (Statistics Canada)	63 % (2023) – highest in the OECD (Education GPS)	▲ +9 pp
Gender equity	Median hourly gender wage gap (women vs men, paid workers 20-54)	16 % (2007) → ~15 % in 2014†	12 % (2022) (Statistics Canada)	▼ -4 pp
Digital infrastructure	Households with access to 50/10 Mbps unlimited fixed Internet	84.1 % (2019) (CRTC)	95.4 % (Feb 2025) (CRTC)	▲ +11 pp
Clean electricity	Share of electricity from renewables (all sources)	67 % (2017) (Canada Energy Regulator)	70 % (2022) (Canada Energy Regulator)	▲ +3 pp
	Wind + solar generation (TWh)	+37 % growth 2016 → 2023 (Statistics Canada)		Strong expansion
Climate	National GHG emissions (Mt CO₂-eq)	747 Mt (2014) (Canada.ca)	694 Mt (2023) (Canada.ca)	▼ -7 %
Environment-adjusted growth	Renewables & emissions taken together: electricity emissions fell 48 % since 1990 (context for the clean-power gains) (Canada.ca)

* Closest year with authoritative data is used where 2014 figures were not collected.

† Statistics Canada does not publish an annual series before 2007 on exactly the same basis; the 2014 value is interpolated from the longer series that shows the gap narrowing steadily toward 2015 and 2016.

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Why these indicators matter

• Poverty: Canada met—and exceeded—its first statutory poverty-reduction milestone (-20 % by 2020) three years early, then cut poverty roughly in half by 2021. That advance is now built into the 2030 target of a 50 % reduction from 2015 levels.

• Human capital: The jump in tertiary attainment reflects both immigration and higher domestic graduation rates, underpinning productivity and wage growth.

• Gender wage gap: A narrowing gap signals progress on labour-market equity—though at 12 % it remains above the UN-SDG target of closing the gap entirely.

• Connectivity: Universal 50/10 service is now within reach; the CRTC’s 95 % threshold has been met nationally and the focus has shifted to the last ~500 000 rural and remote households.

• Energy transition: Canada’s grid is already one of the world’s cleanest; incremental gains now come mainly from rapid wind-solar build-out and the phase-out of coal in Alberta, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

• Emissions: Absolute GHG emissions are finally lower than they were a decade ago—despite strong population growth—thanks to electricity decarbonisation, methane regulations and EV uptake. Canada still needs a steeper decline to hit the 2030 Paris target, but the direction has reversed.

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Reading the numbers critically

• Pandemic effects: Several indicators (poverty, emissions, life expectancy) were temporarily distorted in 2020-2021; the latest data smooth those swings but longer time-series context is essential.

• Population surge: Record immigration since 2021 lowers per-capita metrics; gains in broadband or renewables are larger on a per-person basis than national totals suggest.

• Regional gaps remain: Rural broadband, Indigenous child poverty and emissions from oil-and-gas still lag national averages; the aggregate progress hides significant inter-provincial divergence.

Overall, however, these six headline metrics show clear, statistically-documented improvement for Canadians since 2014 across social, economic, digital and environmental dimensions.