National school feeding program | Where is the billion promised by the liberals?

(Ottawa) The Breakfast Club is getting impatient. Inflation in food prices makes the establishment of a national nutritious school meals program even more relevant. The Liberals promised it during the 2021 election campaign, but the billion has not been budgeted since. The Bloc Québécois urges the government to respect its commitment.

“The strings of the stock market are very, very difficult to untie,” notes the co-founder of the Breakfast Club, Judith Barry. We understand the context, but precisely this famous context justifies the need to invest in such a policy at this time. »

The organization participated in a consultation in 2022 launched by the Ministry of Employment and Social Development on the development of a national school food policy. He expected the last federal budget to include money to launch such a program, but was disappointed.

The Breakfast Club points out that Canada remains the only G7 country not to have a school nutrition program.

Bloc Québécois MP Sylvie Bérubé sent a letter to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday to remind her of this commitment. “Following my discussions with these organizations, they are categorical: the billion over five years that you promised must be disbursed,” she wrote. It is a necessity. »

She asks that the amounts be given to Quebec and the other provinces so that they can allocate them to organizations that fight against food insecurity.

“It is certain that there are commitments that must be a priority and I think that this one is a priority for the future of our children,” says the member for Abitibi—Baie-James— Nunavik—Eeyou in interview.

Although food price growth declined in August, it remains high at 6.9%. They had already increased by 9.8% in 2022, according to Statistics Canada data.

According to the most recent estimates, 1.8 million children in Canada lived in families who were struggling to afford the food they needed in 2022. That’s one in four children. An increase compared to the previous year when 1.4 million did not have enough to eat. These data were calculated by researchers from PROOF, a program overseen by the University of Toronto whose objective is to propose public policies to reduce food insecurity.

The 2023 federal budget contained an entire chapter with measures to make life affordable, but nothing to combat food insecurity in schools. “It is a long-term investment that is intended to be much more effective than certain other measures currently put in place to alleviate the financial burden on families linked to the cost of food,” says Ms.^me Barry referring to the meeting of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, with the five major grocery chains. He asked them to provide him with a plan to stabilize their prices between now and Thanksgiving.

Minister Chrystia Freeland did not respond to questions from The Press, his press secretary instead transferred them to the office of the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Jenna Sudds. “Following a series of consultations with several stakeholders, the establishment of a national school food policy has received a lot of support,” said its press secretary Soraya Lemur. . She added that the consultation report would be published in the coming weeks without specifying whether the government intended to keep its promise.

In Budget 2019, the federal government committed to creating Canada’s first food policy. He promised to allocate 134.4 million over five years from 2019-2020 and 5.2 million annually thereafter. The Liberals then returned to the charge during the 2021 election campaign by promising $1 billion over five years for a national nutritious meals program and launched a consultation in 2022 which led to no concrete policy.

Food insecurity in schools has made headlines in recent weeks. In Quebec, a coalition including the Breakfast Club is campaigning for the establishment of a universal food program. The organization founded on the South Shore of Montreal in 1994 expanded across the country in 2005, today supporting more than 3,000 programs from coast to coast.

A study by the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS) made public in August estimated the cost of a free daily meal for all students in the public network at 1.7 billion per year. The National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion on September 13 to aim to eliminate food insecurity in schools.