As Breakfast Club, the only national school food operator, our mission goes far beyond serving meals: we are ardent defenders of the daily well-being and future of our Canadian youth.
On October 18 and 19, Paris shone by hosting the first global meeting of the School Feeding Coalition, chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron. This international summit allowed us to examine the importance of investing in the future of our young people through school meal programs. The discussions highlighted the importance of political ambition in solving global food insecurity. World leaders and ministers from more than 65 countries, NGOs and UN agencies have joined together to discuss, engage and develop ambitious plans to tackle world hunger, prioritizing child hunger.
However, a major player was missing: Canada.
This decision is more than worrying, demonstrating the Canadian government’s negligence in the face of an urgent problem: food insecurity among our young people. In a context where Canada is going through turbulence and where the middle class is being further undermined, our schoolchildren continue to feel hungry, betrayed by government promises that have not been kept since 2019.
We are the only G7 country without a national school feeding program. Such a statistic should ring a wake-up call. The numbers speak for themselves: in 2022, nearly 1.8 million children lived in a situation of food insecurity in Canada. A terrifying increase compared to the previous year. These numbers are not just a statistic, they represent faces, names, bright young minds who are being deprived of realizing their full potential.
We at the Breakfast Club see every day the beneficial effects of school meals on the lives of our children. They strengthen education, provide access to a healthy and varied diet, nourish ambitions and build caring school communities. We know it works, and we are perplexed by the federal government’s inaction.
The 2021 election promise to invest $1 billion over five years to establish a national school feeding program remains a distant echo. We are waiting, like all of you, for this promise to become a reality. The time has come for Canada to take the lead. To show that it lives up to its commitments and the trust its citizens place in it. Child hunger in school is a problem we can, and must, solve together, now.
The question therefore arises: when will Canada be truly committed to the health and education of its young people? It is time to act, because every day that passes without action is one day too many for our children.
We call on our leaders, our communities and every Canadian to unite in this mission. Our children deserve a future where empty stomachs do not hinder their pursuit of knowledge. Mr Prime Minister, do you still believe in it?