Make hunger history in Canada, once and for all

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This article was published 09/11/2024 (461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a serious problem that isn’t going away. In fact, it’s getting worse.

Last week, the Canadian Press reported that Canadians’ reliance on food banks has soared to a troubling new level. According to data accumulated by Food Banks Canada — a charitable organization representing hundreds of food banks across the country — there were more than two million visits to Canadian food banks in March of this year.

In its annual survey of food bank usage, entitled “HungerCount 2024,” the organization says that visits to food banks were up six per cent from 2023, 90 per cent higher than in 2019. One-third of food bank clients were children, while demand is highest among renters, racialized groups, people with disabilities, newcomers to Canada and Canadians living in the north. It adds that there is a “deeply concerning” need among seniors and families with children.

The report also indicates that almost 30 per cent of Canadian food banks reported running out of food, and that “there are signs that the food-banking system is reaching its absolute limit.”

The organization says rapid inflation, housing costs and insufficient social supports are driving poverty and food insecurity across the nation. That, in turn, is resulting in more Canadians relying on food banks to feed themselves and their families.

The findings in the Food Banks Canada report are consistent with data accumulated by the Salvation Army. On Thursday, that organization’s annual report on poverty in Canada revealed that one-quarter of Canadian parents say they have reduced their own food consumption in order to ensure their children had enough to eat in the past year.

Of those parents, 90 per cent said they reduced their grocery bills in order to cover other financial obligations, 86 per cent said they are buying less-nutritious food because it’s less expensive, and 84 per cent said they are skipping meals entirely.

John Murray, a spokesperson for the Salvation Army, told the media that “many Canadians continue to have trouble meeting their daily basic needs for themselves and, much more importantly, for their children and their family members … And that, for us as an organization, signals a deep, deep crisis for us in the country.”

Grocery prices aren’t going down, and a growing number of Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. As a result, the problem of food insecurity is getting worse. What’s the solution?

If the Trudeau government had a viable plan to reverse the troubling trend, it would have already been implemented and the number of food bank users would be going down, not up. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives say that “it wasn’t like this before Justin Trudeau and it won’t be like this after he’s gone,” but they offer no specifics as to how they would solve the problem.

Some non-government organizations and anti-poverty advocates have called for grocery price controls, while others have demanded higher minimum wage levels and higher social assistance payments. Some suggest that a guaranteed annual income would solve the problem. The Food Banks Canada report recommends a “groceries and essentials benefit,” which it says could be achieved by adjusting the quarterly GST credit that is currently paid to low-income Canadians.

“We’re asking for it to be increased and made monthly, so that it can be a more predictable payment to folks who are really in need,” says Food Banks Canada CEO Kirstin Beardsley. “It’s really to offset those essential costs, the increases in rents that people are seeing, the increases in cost of essentials like food.”

Canada is in the midst of a nationwide hunger crisis, and the situation is becoming more dire each year. All reasonable proposals to solve the problem should be seriously considered, given that the alternative is even more Canadians relying on food banks to feed themselves and their families, and food banks struggling to meet the growing demand.

In a nation as prosperous as Canada, no citizen — and especially no child — should ever be forced to live without nutritious food. The current situation is embarrassing for the nation and harmful to the most vulnerable in our society.

It’s time for a courageous Canadian solution that makes hunger history, once and for all. If not now, when?