Question Period Note: SCHOOL FOOD

Mandate letter and Budget 2022 commitment on school food.

Ensuring that every child gets the best start in life is a priority for our Government.

We recognize that poverty and food insecurity are intricately linked. We have made significant investments, through targeted social programs and income supplements to reduce poverty and food insecurity.

Minister Bibeau and I share a commitment to work with provinces, territories, municipalities, Indigenous partners and stakeholders to develop a National School Food Policy and explore how more Canadian children can receive nutritious food at school.

We are working to deliver on this important commitment.

Food Policy for Canada

Budget 2019 announced over $134.4 million in initial investments to support a Food Policy for Canada. Led by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), the policy is meant to ensure that all Canadians “are able to access a sufficient amount of safe, nutritious, and culturally diverse food [and that] Canada’s food system is resilient and innovative, sustains our environment and supports our economy.” The Food Policy for Canada aligns with the objectives of initiatives across the federal government, such as the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, the Heathy Eating Strategy, and the Poverty Reduction Strategy, among others.

The announcement of the Food Policy included a federal commitment to “engage with provinces, territories, and key stakeholder groups to work toward the creation of a National School Food Program.”

As part of the implementation of the Food Policy, the Local Food Infrastructure Fund, a five-year, $60 million initiative, ending March 31, 2024, supports community-based initiatives to strengthen food systems and improve food access.

School Food

School food programming, with the exception of First Nations on-reserve, falls under provincial/territorial jurisdiction, however the Government of Canada has provided some funding to support school food initiatives. For example, the Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund delivered by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has invested an estimated $12 million in funding to support four healthy eating projects in schools. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC’s) Emergency Food Security Fund has also provided approximately $12 million in funding to support more than 800 food projects in schools across the country, including school breakfast and meal programs.

Provincial/territorial governments, local authorities, volunteers and third parties fund and deliver some existing school food programming. However, there is an uneven patchwork of programming across the country, reaching roughly one in five (21%) school-age children; the needs of many children are not adequately met.

Stakeholders and experts continue to be engaged in developing the policy, including through the Canadian Food Policy Advisory Council’s Working Group on School Nutrition, who have provided high-level recommendations to Minister Bibeau and Minister Gould. Stakeholders view the National School Food Policy and that of resulting programming as an opportunity to increase children’s access to healthy meals at school while enabling flexibility to address unique challenges and contexts across the country.

Stakeholders generally favour approaches that are affordable, accessible, health-focused, and universally available. Potential policy components that will be further explored through the engagement process include health promotion and ensuring food is adequate and nutritious, exploring how to align programming to needs in a way to avoid stigma, , culturally appropriate programming, and ensuring accountability.

Following an announcement about school food in Budget 2019, ESDC consulted on school food with PTs and stakeholders. As a part of this process, provinces and territories provided information on existing programming.

The December 2021 mandate letters of the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food included the commitment to work with provinces, territories, municipalities, Indigenous partners and stakeholders to develop a National School Food Policy and to work toward a national school nutritious meal program. Budget 2022 reaffirms this commitment.

Accordingly, ESDC and AAFC have begun working together to deliver on this commitment. Current work involves developing policy analysis, engagement approaches, working with federal partners and leveraging existing mechanisms to engage provinces and territories, Indigenous partners, academic experts, and key stakeholders.

Through the Inuit-Crown Food Security Working Group, federal departments are supporting an Inuit-led study on the cost of an Inuit Nunangat School Food Programin Inuit Nunangat.

Food Insecurity

Food insecurity has been defined by the Government of Canada as “the inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so.” Household food insecurity is consistently measured in Canada as lack of financial access to food.

Previously, estimates of food insecurity and unmet health needs were published using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). Going forward, food insecurity and unmet health needs will be available annually using data from the Canadian Income Survey (CIS), which was recently updated to include questions on food insecurity.

The overall rate of food insecurity reported in the CIS was 11.2% in 2020, which is an increase from 10.8% in 2019. This national rate does not include the population living in the territories (territorial rates are reported separately) or the population living on-reserve.

Based on a household’s experience, food insecurity can be categorized into 3 categories:

Marginal food insecurity: captures worry about running out of food and/or limited food selection due to a lack of money for food.

Moderate food insecurity: captures compromises in the quality and/or quantity of food due to a lack of money for food.

Severe food insecurity: captures missed meals, reduced food intake and, at the most extreme, go day(s) without food.

The overall rates of food insecurity include those that are moderately and severely food insecure.

Canada’s Official Poverty Line and Food Prices

Canada’s Official Poverty Line is based on the Market Basket Measure (MBM), an existing measure of low income developed in Canada. The MBM establishes income thresholds based upon the cost of a basket of food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and other items for individuals and families representing a modest, basic standard of living, across 53 regions in Canada. If a person’s or family’s disposable income is below the threshold for the region in which they live in a given year, they are considered to be living poverty.

The MBM uses the 2019 National Nutritious Food Basket (NNFB), developed by Heath Canada, to calculate the cost of the food component. The NNFB is a survey tool used by various levels of government and other stakeholders to monitor the cost and affordability of healthy eating. Food prices are collected by Statistics Canada in 38 cities across Canada and updated annually using the provincial Consumer Price Index for food.

Food prices rose significantly in the last year – between April 2021 and April 2022, the price of food rose by 9.7%. Annual updates to food prices in the MBM’s food basket means that it is responsive to changing food prices. As such, the rising cost of food will be reflected in Canada’s poverty rates.

As food prices increase, poverty thresholds are likely to follow. This could impact poverty rates in Canada in the coming years.

Poverty Reduction Strategy

In 2018, Canada introduced Opportunity for All – Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy, which established an official measure of income poverty (Canada’s Official Poverty Line), set concrete poverty reduction targets and aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty.

Canada’s Official Poverty Line is being used to measure progress toward two targets, using a baseline year of 2015: reduce the rate of poverty by 20% by 2020; and reduce the rate of poverty by 50% by 2030. Results from the 2020 Canadian Income Survey (CIS) shows that Canada’s overall poverty rate, based on Canada’s Official Poverty Line, decreased from 14.5% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2019. Between 2015 and 2019, almost 1.3 million Canadians were lifted out of poverty, including 450,000 children and 25,000 seniors. In addition, between 2019 and 2020 approximately 1.4 million more Canadians, including 332,000 children and 162,000 seniors, were lifted out of poverty, with the overall poverty rate dropping further to 6.4% in 2020. It is important to note, however, that the significant decrease in poverty between 2019 and 2020 can be mostly attributed to temporary COVID-19 emergency income supports provided in 2020.

The Strategy recognizes that poverty and food insecurity are linked. Food insecurity is an indicator on the poverty reduction strategy’s dimensions of poverty hub under the “dignity” pillar.

Canada offers a number of robust and targeted social programs and income supplements that provide cash supports to many Canadians, enabling them to decide how to spend their money, reduce their financial burdens, and improve their access to essentials, including food. These include the Canada Child Benefit, which provides substantial income support to families raising children. In the previous benefit year (July 2020 to June 2021), the CCB provided support to about 3.5 million families and over 6 million children, putting over $25 billion, tax free, in the hands of Canadian families. Most families receiving the maximum CCB amounts are single-parent families, with over 90% of them being single mothers.

Budget 2022 included several measures that will help to reduce poverty and inequality. These measures include a comprehensive plan to make housing more affordable, providing dental care for low-income Canadians and implementing an employment strategy for persons with disabilities. The Government is also working with provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners to implement a Canada-wide, community-based system of quality child care.

Further, Budget 2021 committed to providing $400 million in 2021-22 (extended to 2023-24) to create a temporary Community Services Recovery Fund to help charities and non-profits adapt and modernize so they can better support the economic recovery in our communities. This will include organizations that address food insecurity and support access to food.

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