Food Banks Canada has released its annual Hunger Count Report and the statistics are grim.
Nearly 1.5 million Canadians visited a food bank in March 2022, a 35-per-cent increase from 2019.
People of all backgrounds are getting help from food banks, including the half a million children who visited them in the month of March alone.
That's the month when Food Banks Canada collects data from all food banks throughout the country to produce its 'Hunger Count' report, the only national study of food banks.
Caroline Newton, chief communications officer for Food Banks Canada, said Canadians are generous, but throwing more food at the problem is not going to bring the numbers down.
“Food insecurity is really the result of income insecurity and so one of the big drivers is the cost of housing,” Newton said.
“So municipalities have a huge role to play in making sure there’s affordable housing. And what that means is they need to work with the provincial and the federal governments.”
Newton said the two other reasons causing people to turn to food banks are food costs and low social assistance rates. She would like to see an income floor for those groups and workers receive a living wage as opposed to a minimum wage.
The general manager of the Cochrane Food Bank agrees. Cathy Beaton told CTV News she hears the same stories from people who've said the cost of housing is forcing them to decide between that and food.
The Cochrane Food Bank is facing its own challenges. It acts as a hub for 15 food banks in the area, including those in Timmins, and it hasn't been able to receive important food items from distributors in Toronto.
"Right now we're all struggling,” Beaton said.
“We don’t have any frozen meat. At first it was trucker issues in Toronto and the amount of food given to Toronto or donated to Toronto that is causing problems right now. We’re just waiting for a resolution for that.”
In the meantime, Beaton is grateful for the support from the community.
