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Canadian parents only need to spend between $3,000 and $4,500 per year to raise a healthy child and studies citing higher numbers are misleading and biased toward high-income families, a new report says.

The report, The Cost of Raising Children, looked at data from Statistics Canada and Health Canada, articles in magazines and newspapers, and family budgets from other sources.

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Published by the conservative think-tank Fraser Institute, the report’s goal is to influence public policy and “set the record straight” on “wildly off-base” reports on financial costs of raising children.

We shouldn’t misinform, particularly lower income families

“We shouldn’t mislead or misinform, particularly lower income families,” said Chris Sarlo, the report’s author and a

senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and professor of economics at Nippissing University.

Prevailing estimates on how much it costs to raise a child in Canada and the United States are currently between $10,000 and $15,000 per year, the report says.