Maytree

The cost to put food on the table and gasoline in the car pushed up the cost of living in September, lifting the annual pace of price increases to a near two-decade high with no clear end in sight to the elevated readings.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau was told weeks into the Liberals' second mandate that Canadians are most worried about affordability in areas where governments have a lot of power over prices — particularly child care.

Canada's poverty rate has fallen to a historic low in one of the sharpest three-year declines on record, the national statistics office says, but millions of Canadians still live below the poverty line.

The national statistics office is looking at changes to the federally adopted poverty line which, if approved, could mean more people are considered to live below the low-income threshold.