Food bank use rising on campus, group warns

A new campus food bank at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax is part of a troubling trend, says the Canadian Federation of Students.

Similar services have sprung up on campuses across Canada as tuition fees and living costs have risen along with student debt, national chairperson Bilan Arte said Tuesday.

“Student unions keep having to prioritize this issue because their members keep saying that they’re making these hard choices between tuition and their next meal. This is incredibly alarming for our organization.

“I think it really underscores for us the importance of talking about the inaccessibility of post-secondary education in Canada today.”

The federation, representing more than 500,000 members from 80 students’ unions, is calling on the federal and provincial governments to make higher learning more affordable.

Arte is among advocates who want to see the issue land on the federal election radar. She said the true extent of student poverty is largely unrecognized and under-reported. “How many food banks opening on campus is it going to take before governments sort of realize that maybe there’s a problem?”

Financial aid officer Allen Wolfe of Saint Mary’s University said he helped set up the campus service after referring students to local food banks on a weekly basis.

While campus-specific statistics are not available, Arte referred to a national study released last fall by Food Banks Canada.

It found that community food banks across the country support about 841,000 people a month, up 25 per cent since the economic slide of 2008.

“We know that campuses are microcosms of the larger society,” Arte said. “We have generally heard and have seen our members report an increase in the usage of their food banks on campus.”