Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, October 17th, marks International Day to Eradicate Poverty. Across Canada, food banks and anti-poverty advocates are joining together to call for a federal anti-poverty plan. The ask: that the federal government enact systemic change to eradicate poverty and hunger for the thousands of people, some 830,000 in Canada, who use food banks each month and for the millions of others struggling to get by. If food banks, soup kitchens and other front-line agencies across the country were to shut down tomorrow, poverty and hunger would become far more visible.
Food banks were started in Canada in the early ‘80s as a temporary way to address hunger. They were never intended to be a permanent measure, but now they are, and we do not have a national plan to address and eradicate poverty in spite of calls from committees of the House of Commons, the Senate and the United Nations, all who have said that Canada needs a federal anti-poverty plan. Today in Canada, one in eight people experience some level of food insecurity, but it’s a whole lot worse in Canada’s North. Hunger Count 2013 is last year’s edition of an annual publication of Food Bank Canada, and the Hunger Count 2013 report found that, “…many Northerners are not getting enough to eat. Food insecurity in the North, and particularly in the Arctic, is a dire public health emergency.”
Statistics in the report, which unfortunately list the three northern territories as one category, show that 38 percent of users across the North are children. From 2008 to 2012 there was a 163 percent increase in the number of residents using food banks in the three territories. From 2012 to 2013, one year, across the North there was an increase of 52 percent in food bank use. At the same time, seven provinces across the country reduced their food bank use.
It doesn’t have to be like this. The research shows that there are strategies that work, specifically anti-poverty strategies. When properly resourced and implemented, they can make a difference.
I believe this government is still committed to our own Anti-Poverty Strategy and Action Plan, that they are committed to reducing poverty wherever possible, but actions speak louder than words.
To that end, I will be asking the Minister responsible for our Anti-Poverty Strategy what we have done, what we’re doing and how we’re measuring any successes.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
