One-third of Canadians feel financially worse off than 3 months ago: Food Banks Canada poll

A new poll from Food Banks Canada found that 35 per cent of Canadians are feeling financially worse off than they did three months ago amid a wave of increased demands for food banks.

The poll, conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights, found that of those who feel more worse off, almost half had incomes below $50,000 a year, 43 per cent of people identify as visible minorities and 42 per cent were millennials.

Food Banks CEO Kristin Beardsley says the data shows the urgent need for action of all levels of government to step in.

“If the newest Statistics Canada projections come true, the food bank system will not be able to support the tidal wave of people needing support,” he said in a statement.

The Statistics Canada report released last week found nearly half of Canadians reported that rising prices were greatly affecting their ability to meet day-to-day expenses.

Beardsley urged the federal government to introduce a Groceries and Essentials Benefit to help curb the growing need for food banks.

CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank Neil Hetherington said these statistics reflect what they are seeing every day at the food bank.

“This is the most difficult year that Daily Bread has ever seen. We used to serve before the pandemic about 60,000 clients every month. Last month, it was 350,000.”

Hetherington says about 14,000 clients that have never needed to use the food bank before are now accessing their services. “That is made up of individuals, more than 50 per cent of them, [who]have full-time employment.”

“One in ten Torontonians uses the Daily Bread and it just never was that way. We never had a city where one in ten had to make use of the Daily Bread Food bank and we need to change that.”

Hetherington said they are advocating for the implementation of the Canada Disability Benefit among others to help affordability for some in the country.

“Nobody who is on disability can get by on what they’re given which is $1,300 a month. We are going to advocate real hard when it comes to affordable housing. We are in a housing deficit year after year and we need to build our way out of that.”

Another one of the largest food banks in the city, North York Harvest Food Bank, was forced to throw out close to $50,000 worth of food due to a power outage and damage caused by flooding last month.

They were working to raise money to replace what was lost.

“We are at the highest usage levels that we’ve ever had … if you asked me on Monday how we are, I’d say we’re at a crisis even before the rain,” Sahar Ghafouri, a director with the organization, said at the time.