Grocery rebate falls flat among Westman residents

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This article was published 01/04/2023 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Brandon senior is “embarrassed” that she can’t afford to host family dinners like she used to because the high cost of living and price of food is outpacing her fixed income.

While Wendy Clark welcomes the federal government’s rebate to help Canadians with rising grocery prices, she said she’s angry that expenses are “through the roof,” and it’s not possible to have her three children, and their kids, over for Sunday dinners.

“It’s embarrassing to be 76 years old and have to pinch pennies,” Clark said. “I am getting two pensions, but with my rent and other bills, I can’t have my kids over for Sunday supper, and the grocery bill makes me especially angry.”

As part of the 2023 federal budget that was tabled Tuesday in the House of Commons, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced a one-time grocery rebate for low-income Canadians, with $234 for single people, $467 for a couple with two children, and about $225 for seniors.

The rebate will help people buy a few extras, maybe even stock up their pantries and freezers, but this is not a long-term solution, said Amanda Naughton-Gale, community ministries director with the Salvation Army in Neepawa. She said more people than ever are using the food bank, community fridge and free bin of food.

“We’ve continued to see an increase of 20 to 40 per cent, depending on the month, and in numbers that we’ve never seen before,” Naughton-Gale said.

There are a lot of families who are on the edge of crisis, noted Naughton-Gale, adding that many Salvation Army clients were making ends meet when they were blind-sided by the unexpected.

“It could be because the car breaks down, or the Hydro bill was more than they thought it was going to be, or they were sick for three days so they lost that on their paychecks. All those things are impacting families’ budgets for sure.”

The rebate will be a bonus and a blessing for those who need it, Naughton-Gale said, but she wondered about people who will receive it and then continue to go without food.

“I think there’s a lot of families out there that are struggling and just don’t feel comfortable coming to a food bank or asking for that type of assistance, because asking for that type of assistance is really difficult. It just is,” she said.

At Brandon’s Food Council — a non-profit organization that aims to create a healthy, thriving community with food for all — Olivia Boyce agreed that many people who experience food insecurity don’t go to food banks. Food insecurity means there is no adequate or secure access to food because of lack of money.

Boyce said society needs to move beyond treating food insecurity as a normal experience.

“It appears the federal government understands that Canadians are struggling, and they’ve provided some solutions. But they’re really Band-Aid solutions, and they’re not going to solve any of these problems. They’ll help, but they’re only going to buy us some time,” Boyce said.

Solutions can come from the community itself, Boyce added, explaining the food rescue store in downtown Brandon is the result of ideas from people wanting to make a difference for under-resourced individuals and families.

People should look at the big picture, she said, beyond the one-time rebate.

“We really need to look at people as people and understand the difficult choices they have to make every day about what and when they will eat, what bills will and won’t be paid, and the sacrifices that they have to make to make ends meet,” said Boyce.

Ottawa has not made public when the grocery rebate payments will be sent to Canadians, but it will be included in the GST/HST credit.

Kali Shackel, a Brandon mother of two, said even though she has to budget a lot more these days, she and her husband are fortunate that they both work full-time. They’re doing OK, she added, but some of their friends are not.

“Everyone is struggling, it seems. Where I work, some people are only getting 11 hours a week, it’s awful,” said Shackel.

Packing up their car after a grocery shopping trip in downtown Brandon with her husband, Courtney Miller said the federal grocery rebate would hardly buy a week’s worth of food, even for a single person.

“I think it’s pretty hard for people who are on minimum wage to try to make ends meet and afford groceries, especially if they have a family,” said Miller.

As she put her weekly groceries in the car, 76-year-old Clark wondered if the government should have considered other ways to help people with low and fixed incomes, instead of an amount that she said will hardly make a difference.

“Maybe the government should be trying to get the prices down instead of handing out money. Food is a basic necessity — how about lowering some of the taxes we have to pay, to eat?”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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