A new poll suggests that the rising cost of living has caused more than half of Canadians to cut back on their spending in multiple ways, including choosing cheaper and less healthy foods, but also going without medication.
The Salvation Army released on Friday, as part of its Christmas fundraising campaign, the results of a survey conducted by the firm Edelman Data & Intelligence.
This survey suggests that a growing number of Canadians are concerned about the impact of inflation on their daily lives: 52% of respondents reported budget difficulties related to food in the past year. This is an increase from 39% the previous year.
Among respondents’ tough budget choices, 41% said they bought cheaper and less nutritious food; 21% skipped a meal or reduced its size; and/or 11% refrained from buying a medicine they usually took.
The 13th Report on Food Prices in Canada, released last Monday, predicted that food prices would continue to rise over the next year — with grocery costs expected to rise by up to 7% in 2023. For a family of four people, the total annual grocery bill would increase by more than $1,000.
The Salvation Army survey found that 59% of respondents who had recently visited a food bank were new users and 33% said they had struggled to manage a limited budget over the past year. A quarter of respondents said they needed extra income.
The survey was conducted online Nov. 10-15 with a nationally representative sample of 1,505 Canadians. However, the sample did not include Canadians from the three territories — Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Research and methodological experts believe that it is impossible to assign a margin of error to an online survey, since the sampling method is non-probability.
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