Local food bank advocates and politicians gathered in the warehouse of the Aurora Food Pantry to call for change, amid new statistics showing a record-breaking number of Ontarians use food banks.
More than one million people visited a food bank in Ontario between April 2023 and March 2024, according to numbers released by Feed Ontario earlier this week.
Amid these stark statistics, Amanda King, senior director of network services, called for greater awareness, increases to social assistance, and greater investments in affordable housing.
As well as calls for policy changes, King lead local politicians through an interactive game, called Fork in the Road, which presents users with four characters, all facing financial choices.
“It really does help to illustrate how difficult challenges (that) I think that many people can take for granted are for folks living on a low income,” she said. “Paying for your child to go on a $25 field trip, for many people, they don’t put a lot of thought into that decision, but for many others it is a big deal, and can really impact your monthly budget.”
“Food banks don’t want to exist,” she added. “We know that food banks are not a solution to food insecurity. Food insecurity in Ontario is an income issue, meaning the food is there, but folks don’t have enough money to buy the food they need.”
“Our hope is to one day work ourselves out of a job,” she said.
Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill MPP and Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Michael Parsa was among those in attendance, and said the presentation highlighted how the cost of living “effects everybody, and it effects the most vulnerable the most.”
“We need to do more with the help of the federal government, the municipal government, we need to all do more, at a time the when rising cost of living, everybody has to step up,” he said.
“But all of us have to work together, and we need to lower the cost,” he said. “For example, some of the taxes that are being introduced at other levels of government, at a time when everything is going up, we can’t look at that. We need to continually keep the cost of living low so everyone can afford, and everyone continue to thrive wherever they’re living.”
Aurora Food Pantry donations
Elizabeth Matthews, program co-ordinator with the Aurora Food Pantry, said donations have ticked up in recent weeks — which usually happens close to Thanksgiving and the holiday season.
However, she said there has not been the same cyclical drop in food bank use during the summer months, like there often has been in previous years.
“We have seen some more donations from our community, but it’s just not quite enough to meet our need at the moment because the need is so high, we’re going through food at such a high rate.”
