More than one million Ontarians visited a food bank during the last fiscal year, a 25 percent increase compared to the year prior, according to a new report by Feed Ontario.
“When we released record-breaking data last year, we thought that was the high-water mark,” Feed Ontario CEO Carolyn Stewart said in a
press release. “But food bank use has only continued to climb as more Ontarians find themselves struggling to make ends meet.”
Ontario food banks were visited a total of 7.6 million times between April 2023 and March 2024, a 134 percent increase over the 2019 to 2020 fiscal year, according to the organization. Food Canada said the trend indicates the need for food banks is continuing to grow, with 2024 marking an all-time high for usage and the eighth consecutive year of growth.
Stewart said food banks have been unable to keep up with demand, with some seeing long lines, empty shelves, and a growing concern they may have to close their doors. According to Feed Ontario, 69 percent of food banks in the network are worried about not having the food they need to support Ontarians, while 53 percent are concerned about not having enough funding to meet demand.
“Food banks were only ever designed to be a temporary measure. They were never meant to patch holes left in our weak social safety nets,” Stewart said.
Economic factors such as higher food inflation and rental costs, higher interest rates, and lower productivity have created a cost-of-living crisis for many Canadians over the past four years.
A 2023 report by Food Banks Canada said overall usage has risen to its highest level since the survey began in 1989, with the highest year-over-year increase in 2023 correlating with the “highest rates of general inflation in 40 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.
Food Bank Canada’s 2023
Poverty Report Card found that one in four Canadians were experiencing food insecurity, while 44 percent of Canadians were worse off financially compared to 2023. The report also gave seven of the provinces a “D-” rating for their approach to poverty reduction, while the federal government received the same grade.
The Liberal government
introduced a $1 billion National School Food program in April 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 making food, fuel, and housing more expensive.
