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NOEL GUSCOTT

and MADELEINE McKAY

For some people when they were growing up, it was commonplace to wait a week or so for good lunch sandwiches. At dinnertime, bowls of Kraft Dinner were a staple. An empty fridge, save for cream for coffee, was to be expected. Running out of food was normal.

Today, they probably still don't realize, even in retrospect, that they were part of an ongoing national crisis. And yet the statistics bear it out.

Approximately 10 per cent of Canadians are forced to make the choice between having good food on the table or paying the bills. That amounts to roughly four million people, which is more than the combined population of the four Atlantic provinces. To make matters worse, one in four children and youth under 18 years of age in Canada go to bed or to school hungry.

“How many children using food banks in Canada is OK with you?” is the question posed by Food Banks Canada on the HungerCount 2018 front page.

Apparently, about one in four.

The phenomenon at the heart of this national crisis is known as “food insecurity,” which is “the inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints.” Financial constraints occur due to precarious or low-wage employment, lack of affordable housing and insufficient social assistance programs, to name a few. Canadians who are marginalized (such as youth and older adults, people of colour and members of the LGBTQ2SIA+ community) are especially vulnerable to food insecurity.

Food insecurity takes a toll on our country. It leads to millions of tax dollars spent on preventable health-care costs. It means that kids and their parents are going hungry. It contributes to poor physical and mental health outcomes. Food insecurity is a barrier to good learning, and a roadblock to a better future.

The federal government has not ignored food insecurity entirely. It could be argued that Stephen Harper had planned to reduce food insecurity by growing the economy and employing Canadians in well-paying jobs. The recent Trudeau government championed food causes and embarked on a range of targeted funding guarantees to new and existing food programs (e.g., Nutrition North and the Local Food Infrastructure Fund) to increase food access and alleviate food insecurity. These initiatives were accompanied by, or part of, the food policy for Canada, which is a comprehensive policy framework complete with designated action areas and fancy policy terminology.

It’s obvious that policy-makers have a firm grasp of the situation: Canadians, many of whom are children, are hungry. And yet, in this brand-new Food Policy, the word youth isn’t mentioned once.

The reality is that recent federal initiatives are full of hot air. While rates of household food insecurity across Canada are above 10 per cent in every province and territory, our government is championing a food policy that continues to offload responsibility to non-governmental, community-based initiatives. This policy is a clear confirmation that the federal government is still content to allow food banks and unreliable corporate intervention to take the lead on addressing hunger, even though the evidence is clear that food charity has little to no impact on moving households out of food insecurity.

Food policy that looks to reduce food insecurity can’t make a difference as long as it ignores lack of income as a driving factor. The alleviation of food insecurity can begin when government is willing to address this root cause. To help kids rise above food insecurity, we need to provide parents the means to afford good, healthy food for their families.

A national crisis requires a national response. The federal government should take the lead and implement a basic income guarantee (BIG) as a first step to alleviate the worst cases of poverty that contribute to poor health and food insecurity. The BIG would lift tens of thousands of people out of poverty, reduce health costs and stimulate local economies. As well, the federal government should follow through with its commitment to fund a national school food program, directly alleviating the food insecurity of children in their learning spaces.

In tandem, these policies could help youth rise above food insecurity by giving their parents the means to buy and serve healthy meals at home, and ensuring healthy and consistent food options at school.

It’s a distant hope, though it seems obvious the government won’t budge. A BIG will be heralded as too bold, too expensive, or perhaps it won’t be the right time. This is a federal government that will not even commit to funding school food programs. Continued federal inaction makes it clear that the price tag to save hungry children is just too high. The excuses will mount, and our children suffer for it.

Noel Guscott is an undergraduate political science student at Dalhousie University with an interest in health-care policy. He works as a research assistant for the Dalhousie food policy lab. He is also former member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Madeleine McKay holds a master of arts in health promotion from Dalhousie University. In 2018, she completed her MA thesis: Experiences of Food Insecurity Among Older Women in Rural Nova Scotia. She is currently a research associate at Dalhousie Family Medicine, primary care research unit.