Struggling economy leads to increased food bank use across Canada

Food Banks Canada released its annual report on the number of people using food banks on Tuesday, showing that March 2015 experienced a demand increase of a little more than one per cent over March 2014.

There was no change in use in Nova Scotia.

In Lethbridge, the Interfaith Food Bank reported a seven-per-cent increase in usage during past six months.

He says government needs to help create sustainable employment so people don’t have to leave.

Food bank usage numbers are up across the board, but Alberta has seen the biggest increases thus far, according to the latest statistics.

The report this year found that nearly 36 per cent of users, or about 305,000, were children.

The increase in food bank usage, the HungerCount report notes, was felt in both rural and urban communities, with 75 per cent of rural food banks in Saskatchewan and Alberta reporting usage increases. “These can be removed through access to re-training, education, and grant funding for training programs to address root causes of food insecurity for the most vulnerable – the working poor, the unemployed, and the underemployed”.

Dependency on food banks, the report noted, also jumped in British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, and the three Territories. Thirty-three per cent of those families are single-parent families. More than a third of those helped were children. “Even though we’ve seen repeated attempts to address child poverty, we’re just not making that big of an impact”.

The recommendations include investment in affordable housing; helping Canadians get the skills they need for the well-paying jobs; increasing northern Canadians’access to traditional and store-bought foods.

“We are excited at the prospect of moving forward in a positive and constructive way with the new federal government to significantly reduce the need for food banks in Canada”, she added. The need then spiked in 2009 and has hovered at record levels ever since.

“At the end of the day, we would be a better off Canada than we are today”.

Non-profit food banks, staffed mainly by volunteers, are seeking donations to meet heavy demand, including after the holiday season and into the new year, she said.