Nearly 40 Percent of Ontario Food Banks Rationing Supplies Amid ‘Unprecedented’ Demand: Report

Food and goods are sorted to be sent to a food bank at a Metro grocery store In Toronto on Feb. 2, 2024. The Canadian Press/Cole Burston

Nearly 40 percent of Ontario food banks say they have been “forced to reduce the amount of food they provide” for users following a second year of “unprecedented” surge in demand, according to a new report.

“Many food banks have reached their capacity for growth, while the need in their communities continues to increase,” said Feed Ontario CEO Carolyn Stewart in the food bank network’s 2024 report titled, “Unravelling at the Seams.”

“As one of the ‘last resort’ supports available before someone becomes homeless, we cannot let food banks fall apart.”

Feed Ontario, which represents a network of more than 1,200 food banks and hunger relief organizations in the province, said over one million people, or one in 16 Ontarians, used a food bank in 2023. While the number of unique individuals accessing food banks in the last two years has increased by 73 percent, the organization projects the demand will rise by an additional 24 percent in 2025.

There was an 8 percent increase in unique individuals using Ontario food banks and a 32 percent rise in overall visits to Ontario food banks during the pandemic between 2019 and 2021, the group said. But from 2022 to 2023, the number of unique individuals spiked by 73 percent and the number of visits rose by 78 percent.

Feed Ontario warned of a “growing gap between the demand for support and the resources available to food banks” in recent years, with Ontarians being unable to donate as much to food banks.

“There are few other options to replenish the ‘fund,’ as food banks cannot raise taxes like governments or raise prices like businesses,” the report said, adding that “no one could have anticipated the sharp increase that is currently being seen.”

Several economic factors such as high inflation and housing costs, higher interest rates, and lower productivity have created a cost-of-living crisis for many Canadians over the past four years. Canada’s inflation rate rose from 2.2 percent in March 2021 to a peak of 8.1 percent in June 2022. While higher interest rates by the Bank of Canada have since brought inflation down closer to the bank’s target of 2 percent, prices for food and housing have remained elevated.

The Liberal government introduced a $1 billion National School Food program in its Budget 2024 aiming to provide meals to 400,000 more children every year over the next five years. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called it a “federal food bureaucracy” program, and criticized the Liberals for raising its federal carbon tax, which he says is at the root of higher food, fuel, and housing costs.

The Liberals recently announced Canadians would receive a two-month break from the federal sales tax on certain items in a bid to alleviate cost-of-living challenges, while also proposing $250 cheques for most Canadian workers to be sent out in the spring.