Food bank use in city soars
Private-sector support not enough, says director of local organization
The number of Calgarians accessing the city’s food bank is up 17 per cent year over year and a staggering 47 per cent from 2014, according to a report released Tuesday.
Food Banks Canada says last March some 863,492 people across the country turned to a food bank, a 1.3 per cent increase over March 2015 and a 28 per cent rise over 2008.
Calgary Food Bank CEO James McAra didn’t mince words when it came to the negative details.
“I don’t know if you want to say congratulations, we are the worst,” McAra said.
The report found that food banks in eight of 10 provinces saw increased traffic, with the biggest jumps in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and the three territories.
Only Manitoba and Ontario didn’t see increased usage compared with last year.
Nova Scotia food banks saw a 20.9 per cent increase in users from 2015, while Alberta and Saskatchewan both saw 17 per cent increases.
McAra told Postmedia it’s a systemic problem here in Calgary, with dollars only coming in from the public and not the public sector.
“Food banks are not government funded, and in Calgary, we aren’t funded by the United Way, either. There is a disconnect when we are not part of the conversation,” McAra said.
He added the food bank can work in a preventive model, but is forced to work in the emergency zone for the most part.
On a national level, the report recommends the Liberal government, among other things, fasttrack a poverty-reduction strategy and revamp the welfare system.
“Social assistance traps Canadians in poverty rather than helping them to escape it,” the report says.
“It is based in a culture of suspicion and distrust, rather than one of support and mutual aid.”
The report recommends that the bar be lowered in terms of the value of liquid assets a household is allowed to have while getting welfare, and that benefits not be reduced if welfare recipients are able to earn extra cash through work.
For the longer term, it calls for creation of a basic income for Canadians that would be administered through the tax system, allowing governments to “dismantle existing provincial/territorial social assistance bureaucracies.”
It also recommends the government strengthen an existing program to ensure northerners in isolated communities have access to nutritious food.
The report is based on reports from food banks about the number of people who received groceries in March. Food Banks Canada has picked March as the period for its study because it is a routine month without any predictable high or low use patterns.