Canadian food bank use has risen sharply to the highest levels on record in the past two years, a report stated yesterday.
A Food Banks Canada report found that almost 900,000 people — 9.2 per cent higher than a year earlier — used food banks in March 2010.
It’s a sobering reversal of the declines in food bank use between 2004 and 2008.
“We believe that it is unacceptable for anyone to go hungry in a nation as prosperous as ours,” said Katharine Schmidt, executive director of Food Banks Canada.
While the report said the recession is the reason for this increase — people who lost their jobs have not been able to find new ones or their new jobs don’t pay enough to sustain them — in Ottawa, the increase that Peter Tilley has seen is “not so much driven by the economy as the cold weather.”
The Ottawa Food Bank, where Tilley is the executive director, saw a 13 to 16 per cent increase in January, February and March 2010 from the same period in 2009.
“Ottawa hasn’t been hit as hard, but with the utilities costs … We’re dreading what’s going to happen this year, given the hydro costs,” said Tilley.
With files from the canadian press
