Increasing demand for food assistance this year, coupled with a regular spike in users during the holiday season, has strained Canadian food banks this month, the directors of multiple Canadian food bank associations say.
“Christmas is always a busy time for our food banks but particularly when you add Christmas … plus the regular need throughout the month of December has been increased, it just puts even more pressure on the food banks,” said Shawna Bissell, executive director of Food Banks Alberta, a network of over 100 local organizations in the province.
Organizations across the country have reported an increase in users this year. National network Food Banks Canada counted 1,935,911 visits to food banks in March — the latest data available — a 32.1 per cent increase from March 2022 and a 78.5 per cent jump from March 2019.
In Ontario, visits surged 36 per cent — to 5,888,685 — between April 2022 and March 2023 compared to the previous year, according to a November release from Feed Ontario.
Bissell said demand is so high in her network that it’s unable to build up food reserves. “As soon as that food is coming it’s being distributed out to people in need,” she said in an interview. “Every year we seem to be feeding more and more people.”
On the other side of the country, Food Banks of Quebec executive director Martin Munger said his organization this year distributed twice the number of aid packages it handed out in 2019. It gave out tens of thousands of food baskets in the run-up to Christmas, alone, he said. Now, stocks are low.
Demand, he said, has “been high all year long, and it’s also been higher during the holiday season than in previous years.”
Dan Huang-Taylor, executive director of Food Banks BC, said 2023 has seen the highest level of demand for food banks since they started operating in British Columbia in the early 1980s.
Huang-Taylor said December has seen an increase in support alongside the growing demand for food banks.
“We see a lot more people giving over the course of December as well. Food and funds and other ways that people can help out, like say, volunteering, that can offset some of the increase in demand that we see,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Bissell, Huang-Taylor and Munger expect to continue to be able to pull together enough funds and donations to meet demand without turning people away. But Munger hopes the government will implement more sustainable solutions to help people feed themselves rather than resort to food banks, an emergency resource that now serves one in 10 Quebecers, he said.
“It has to stop increasing,” he said. “It’s not tenable and food banks weren’t developed to respond to demand on this scale on an ongoing basis.”
The concern over sustainability is echoed by Huang-Taylor, who said support should include improvements like more affordable housing and higher rates of social assistance or other programs for people in need.
“We need to see some interventions that will reduce the strain on food banks, beyond just providing more money or more food. (We need) more preventative measures that will alleviate that strain and mean that someone doesn’t have to turn to the food bank to put food on their table,” he said.
– With files from Ashley Joannou in Vancouver
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 30, 2023.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
