As the novel coronavirus continues to spread across Canada, officials are struggling to provide aid to those who have been impacted by the pandemic.
And experts say organizations tasked with combating food insecurity are already feeling the strain as more and more people seek assistance.
How is the COVID-19 affecting those experiencing food insecurity? Are more people going to become food insecure?
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Here’s a look at what’s going on.
How many people are food insecure in Canada?
A study released earlier this month from PROOF, an interdisciplinary research program investigating household food insecurity in Canada, found that one in eight households across the country is food insecure.
“This represents 4.4 million people, the largest number recorded since Canada began monitoring food insecurity,” the report said.
The report added this number — reflective of 103,500 households from Statistics Canada’s 2017-18 Canadian Community Health Survey — is an underestimate, as it did not include people living on First Nations reserves, some remote northern areas, or the homeless.
The report also found that 17 per cent of children under the age of 18 — more than one in six — live in a family experiencing food insecurity.
Gisèle Yasmeen, executive director at Food Secure Canada, said even before the coronavirus outbreak, food insecurity in Canada was already “trending in the wrong direction.”
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“The urgency, or the concern, is that a situation that was already concerning in a wealthy country like Canada is getting worse as a result of this crisis,” she said.
How will COVID-19 affect food insecurity in Canada?
Nick Saul, CEO of Community Food Centres Canada, said many who were already food insecure are considered “very precariously employed.”
“Not enough hours, not enough benefits, only one salary carrying a whole family, and that salary just doesn’t pay enough,” he explained. “So when you have something like COVID, hit in the midst of that stress and uncertainty and anxiety, those ranks are only going to grow.”
While COVID-19 continues to spread in Canada, provincial governments have ordered non-essential businesses to close, forcing mass lay-offs.
As a result, since mid-March more than one million Canadians have applied for unemployment insurance.
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Saul said this means more people will be accessing assistance at more than 200 locations across the country.
“All of those people are going to be very worried about their food. So more and more people coming to the community, food centres, the good food organizations that we run across this country,” he said. “So it’s going to be busy and the stress will be high.”
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Saul added centres are already seeing an increase in demand.
“I can absolutely tell you that more and more people are showing up at the doors of those centres,” he said. “And that’s a significant concern.”
But, Saul said these organizations don’t have the capacity to deal with the surge, saying that even before the COVID-19 outbreak, the charitable sector was “not coming close” to addressing the need.
“Many of us who are on the frontlines of this were saying we need to increase minimum wages, we need to build more affordable housing,” he said.
“So now there is a new wave of people who are joining those ranks and the numbers are just going to continue to grow.”
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Saul said the COVID-19 pandemic is putting extra strain on those who were already food insecure before the outbreak.
He explained those receiving social assistance already have difficulty navigating food, shelter and transportation, without the extra stress of a pandemic.
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“And that’s a deep concern that, as a society, we have to face up to and do better going forward,” he said.
The federal government announced last month it would spend up to $82 billion to support Canadians affected by COVID-19, including $55 billion to meet the liquidity needs of Canadian businesses and households through tax deferrals. The total amount of support was later increased to $107 billion.
The government has also said all companies will get 75 per cent of salaries covered, if they’ve lost 30 per cent of their revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said business of all sizes, charities and non-profits are eligible for the emergency wage subsidy. Trudeau also urged Canadians to continue to donate to charitable organizations amid the pandemic so they can continue to operate.
Saul said he is glad the government is working to provide support to businesses to keep people employed, adding that he hopes the money is disseminated quickly.
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“The government has responded as well on the emergency side, flowing money out to our sector,” he said. “So that’s good, that’s really good and important.”
Saul said the economic measures announced by the government are “really important medium-term responses,” but said once the pandemic is over, “we have to get back to talking about the structural inequalities that exist in our society because they were massive and they’ve only been exacerbated by the current COVID crisis.”
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Yasmeen echoed Saul’s remarks, saying Canada needs to address the urgent crisis, but that the situation should also be used as an “opening for transformative change.”
She said they have been calling for a “more integrated, better social safety net” and for a universal basic income in Canada in order to address food insecurity.
“We have a patchwork of social programs, both federally, provincially, etc.,” she said. “So it’s really time to not just invest in an emergency type way, but transform our system so that we don’t have these people falling through the cracks.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
