PROOF’s latest Food Insecurity in Canada report is out, reporting on Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey (CIS) data from 2021. The results are perhaps not surprising but disappointing all the same.
15.9% of households in the ten provinces had experienced food insecurity in the previous 12 months.
Household food security “refers to the inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints” (p. 7). The report breaks the statistic down even further. 4.3% of households experienced marginal food insecurity, 7.4% of households experienced moderate food insecurity, and 4.2% of households experienced severe food insecurity. For a refresher on the difference between marginal, moderate, and severe food insecurity, check out our food insecurity fact sheets. While the report does not include data on the territories or households on Indigenous reserves, those areas have repeatedly experienced higher rates of food insecurity in past studies.
Food Insecurity Numbers for Newfoundland and Labrador
For 2021, PROOF reports that:
17.9% of households in Newfoundland and Labrador experienced some degree of food insecurity, amounting to 90,000 people
The breakdown:
4.5% of households experienced severe food insecurity
8.6% of households experienced moderate food insecurity
4.8% of households experienced marginal food insecurity
1 in 4 children under 18 (26.4%) lived in a food-insecure household — this is the highest rate in all of the 10 provinces
Nearly 7 in 10 households (68.8%) relying on social assistance as their main source of income experienced food insecurity
Almost half of all households that experienced food insecurity (45.1%) relied on wages, salaries, or self-employment incomes as their main source of income
What Does This Tell Us?
Not much has changed since 2019 when the CIS data on household food insecurity was first collected. Household food insecurity has dropped very slightly since then (only 1%) and continues to be a major issue here. Many families across the province are struggling to consistently and securely place enough food on the table for themselves. The high rate of children living in food insecure households is a major crisis and families need more support.
It tells us that incomes from social assistance and, for many, employment wages are clearly not adequate to meet the costs of living. Critically, this data was from before the record levels of inflation we’ve seen in 2022. Newfoundland and Labrador does not index its social assistance rate to inflation and has a minimum wage that is well below a living wage. This means that the households that are already challenged to afford food are now having to stretch their income even further. While we don’t have the data yet, we can predict that those rates of food insecurity have increased throughout 2022.
Food insecurity does not exist in isolation. Households that are experiencing food insecurity are also likely experiencing challenges affording the other costs of living, including housing, prescription drugs, and utilities. Food insecurity is a social determinant of health — meaning people experiencing food insecurity are more likely to struggle with their physical and/or mental health and develop chronic health conditions. These factors are affecting nearly 1 in 5 households in Newfoundland and Labrador.
What Needs to Happen?
PROOF puts it succinctly:
“For government responses to be effective they need to be grounded in evidence, targeted to the causes of household food insecurity — not its symptoms — and evaluated in relation to their impact on food insecurity prevalence and severity. Food banks, charitable meal programs, and other community food initiatives cannot be expected to solve this problem” (p. 32).
Food insecurity is, by and large, caused by inadequate household incomes. We need impactful action on increasing household incomes so that everyone in Newfoundland and Labrador can afford the food they want.
There are a number of potential actions. The NL Health Accord calls for a basic income program, to ensure everyone has access to a predictable, reliable, and adequate income (Health Accord, p. 61). We can index social assistance to inflation so that people are not required to stretch their budgets further and further. We can increase the minimum wage to a living wage, so that households relying on wage income can afford the food they want.
17.9% of households experiencing food insecurity is far too many. We need impactful action by the provincial and federal governments now.
Read the Report
Tarasuk V, Li T, Fafard St-Germain AA. (2022) Household food insecurity in Canada, 2021. Toronto: Research to identify policy options to reduce food insecurity (PROOF). Retrieved from https://proof.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Household-Food-Insecurity-in-Canada-2021-PROOF.pdf
Published August 30, 2022
