London NDP MP pushing for national school lunch program

Food bank usage across Canada is the highest it’s been since 1989, with a 47 per cent increase nationwide since March 2022. This number is expected to rise significantly when the data from the March 2023 to March 2024 period is calculated.

Ahead of next month’s federal budget, a London NDP MP is pushing for a national school lunch program.

Lindsay Mathyssen, MP for London-Fanshawe, says a national program would amount to equality for children in public schools through healthy food and nutrition.

“When you’re going to school hungry, you don’t concentrate, you don’t perform the way you need to, you can’t absorb things,” says Mathyssen. “If you’re constantly hungry that’s always on your mind.”

Such a program is long overdue, she says. Not only will it provide food to students, but it also aims to alleviate the burden on their parents or guardians. Many people are forced to choose between rent or other necessities and food, so this would provide some relief.

“It’s also for the parents to know that when things are tight – and things are certainly tough right now – their kids are being looked after in a way they can rely upon,” says Mathyssen.

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It’s estimated that across Ontario, 61 per cent of people who access food banks would be homeless without them. This means food banks are covering or mostly covering their monthly cost of food to help them focus on rent or other aspects of their life.

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“We know how necessary it is, things are hard, and this is a way for the federal government to help individual families and kids,” says Mathyssen. “It’s investing in their future, and it can’t wait any longer.”

In London alone, there has been a 91 per cent increase in the number of people accessing food banks over the past two years.

“Unless something is done at a policy level – were not talking about more food drives or things like that – what we’re talking about is getting food so that its affordable,” says Glen Pearson, co-director of the London Food Bank. “We’re talking about paying people a wage that helps them to buy food and to get an apartment.”

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There are more than 4,500 food banks and larger feeding agencies across the country, and every March they put their data into a joint account to look at trends.

“During the pandemic, the provincial government gave out boxes and boxes of food to banks, to feed families and help them out which was a big boost, actually,” says Pearson. “But, as soon as the kids went back to school there was still a shortage of food, and the program was stopped.”

From 2022 to 2023, there was a 43 per cent increase in people accessing the London Food Bank. There has been an increasing number of children under the age of 18 benefitting from the services, adding up to around 40 per cent across the country.

“The government needs to give people the support they require, which they had for decades in this country, which are no longer being adjusted with the cost of living,” says Pearson.

According to collected data in London in 2022, 38 per cent of food bank visits were children, and food banks were accessed 125,942 times. However, in some communities, the food banks were accessed more than represented. Food banks will be updating the data this month and expect the numbers to be much higher.