Hunger amid city’s plenty
Being hungry is no fun. It’s hard enough to get through a morning at the office, factory or store with a grumbling stomach and a few pangs. Imagine what it’s like for the growing number of families in the Toronto region who deal with hunger, or the fear of empty pantry shelves, as a regular part of life.
It’s a stress-filled existence that diminishes the ability to focus at school, work, or even look for a job. Called “food insecurity,” the fear is never far from no fewer than one in eight Toronto households, according to the Toronto Community Foundation’s recent 2013 Vital Signs report. And it is a problem that, left to fester, will sap our city’s vitality and strain its social fabric.
With a healthy $286-billion economy, the wider Toronto region isn’t naturally associated with hungry children. But statistics confirm that Canada’s economic heartland is a place not just of wealth but also want. Roughly 800,000 people relied on a food bank in 2012, although more than half of those who go hungry can’t bring themselves to do so, out of shame. And Canada-wide, the problem is getting worse. In 2011 the percentage of the population that was food insecure was 12.3 per cent, up from 11.3 per cent three years earlier. Driving this problem is a debilitating combination of poverty-level wages in many families, and rising food costs.
Those who may doubt the seriousness of the issue need look no further than Premier Kathleen Wynne’s decision to pump another $3 million into breakfast and lunch programs in Ontario schools. Cash-strapped as the government is, this premier understands the need. Inflation has outstripped social assistance, leaving the needy with too little to make ends meet once the rent cheque is paid.
Tight as the times are at Queen’s Park as the Liberals struggle to tame a $9-billion deficit, there’s more that can and should be done to help this growing underclass of residents, whether they are workers in precarious low-wage jobs who fall below the $20,000 poverty line, or families on welfare.
The best way Queen’s Park can help ease hunger in Toronto and across the province would be to increase the $10.25 minimum wage, which has been frozen for three years. The government should speed up the work of its minimum wage advisory panel that is to file a report on hourly increases in the coming months. The Liberals have a credible track record on this file, but an increase is overdue.
As the Vital Signs report notes, for the working poor, some of whom hold down three part-time jobs, seemingly small minimum wage hikes can be a big help, especially as the cost of food continues to climb.
And while Queen’s Park has made some modest improvements to social assistance rates, they continue to fall behind inflation. Welcome as the increases are, many on welfare, including single people, still live on a pitiful $626 a month. That can barely rent a room, much less put food on the table.
Finally, at the margin, Ontario could do more by way of educating social assistance recipients on how to stretch out their allowances by buying and preparing cheaper and healthier fresh food, rather than falling back on pricier packaged meals and junk food, and running short by the end of the month.
Granted, there are no simple, cheap solutions to the hunger in our midst. But the Vital Signs report serves as a reminder that in a city as affluent as Toronto, in a province that is the nation’s economic engine, our policy-makers can afford to spare more than a passing thought for the needy. It’s in our common interest.