Food insecurity is a national disaster. Millions line up yearly to get a box of goods at the food banks to feed their kids. Mothers and fathers give up food to feed their kids, and thousands go to bed hungry each night.
This is not a story from some far-off land; this is Canada—our home and Native Land. It is so sad it makes me want to cry, to scream out, and the anger in me wants to make Trudeau and his minions suffer.
Canada, the land of maple syrup and hockey, is grappling with a food insecurity crisis of epic proportions. Forget the polite pronouncements from Ottawa; this isn’t some academic study; it's a goddamn emergency on our streets and in our kitchens. But to politicians, it is largely out of sight, out of mind to be dealt with by providing us with a possible $250 GST reduction. What a joke.
This crisis is largely the fault of Trudeau and the Liberal government. Drunken sailors’ spending and overwhelming government debt have led us to today, but it is essentially our fault. We get what we vote for, and I hope that people in Canada will remember that on the next voting day. If you want a dose of reality, look at the mess the U.S.A. is in because the votes did not consider the past disaster of the guy who will now be president.
Gawd, We Need a Government that Will Fix This
Like most food banks across Canada, the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto is always a bustling hive of volunteers and desperate families. Neil Hetherington, CEO, a man whose eyes hold the weight of a thousand empty bellies, painted a bleak picture. “It's a goddamn catastrophe.”
The numbers don't lie. Over two million visits to Canadian food banks in March 2024 alone. A six percent jump from the previous year and a staggering 90 percent increase since 2019! This isn’t just a blip but a trend, a terrifying downward spiral. One in four parents are skipping meals to feed their kids. ONE IN FOUR! This isn’t some third-world country; this is Canada, which is supposed to be the land of plenty. For most now, it is the land of perpetually empty plates.
The HungerCount 2024 report is a gut punch. A third of food bank clients are children—nearly 700,000 monthly visits! Seven hundred thousand kids. And it’s not just the poor and unemployed using food banks; 18% of clients are employed, struggling to make ends meet in this unaffordable nation.
The Salvation Army’s delivered another sucker punch. Fifty-eight percent of parents reported food-related challenges, resorting to cheaper, less nutritious food and skipping meals to make ends meet. It’s a choice between having heat, paying rent or feeding your kids. It’s a choice no parent should have to make.
Another food bank director said, “Use at our facility is escalating alarmingly. We are shattering our record of monthly client visits.”
And Then This Happens
The Conservative Party criticizes Trudeau's Liberal government. The Liberals respond by accusing the Conservatives of exploiting the situation for political gain. The NDP calls out corporate greed. But who has a solution?
Certainly, corporations will fight any solution for as long as they can. It is in their shareholders’ interest. Just look at their increased profits by blaming inflation on all of this. They are a large part of why our inflation is so bad. But they do not want us to think about that.
The Conservatives plan to “axe the tax.” Some will suggest that we need the tax to fight climate change, but we can only do that if we can afford it. Starving children in Canada shows that we cannot afford it, and we should look for other ways to solve our environmental challenges. Food first, and then look for cost-effective solutions to fix our environment. If we keep going in the direction we are headed, Trudeau will be long gone, sitting on some beach, and we will have no food and no clean environment.
The political squabbling is a distraction. The real issue is the systemic failure to address the root causes of food insecurity: a crippling government debt. Some may ask, what about housing and our social safety nets? Those are not part of the cause; they are part of the results of where Trudeau and his government have taken us today.
Conclusion
Anyone who works with families and communities, as I do, will overwhelmingly tell you that Canada's food insecurity crisis is a gut-wrenching experience. It is a crisis that demands our attention, action, and outrage.
Remember, if you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got. It is time to try a change, and I hope people remember that on election day.
Best wishes
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