While people everywhere face soaring grocery bills, more prairie residents than ever are turning to food banks in Regina and Saskatoon.
Both cities’ food banks are seeing an increase in demand after months of rising costs of living.
“(We saw) before the beginning of March that it was sort of continuing along that very slow increase trend,” said Laurie O’Connor, Saskatoon Food Bank executive director. “And in speaking to my colleagues across the country, they were seeing a much more rapid increase.”
The Saskatoon Food Bank’s numbers were up well over 35 per cent from March 2022, which is close to 23,000 clients who utilized the food bank last month.
“That would be a large jump for us and also would be the most number of people we’ve seen since I started working here 15 years ago,” she said. “For a number of years after about 2017, we saw things getting a bit better for folks, but that certainly isn’t the case now.”
O-Connor says contributing factors are the rising costs of groceries, people having to pay back Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) overpayments, inflationary pressures and supply chain issues.
“I’m not certain that that will ease at all as we hear folk’s stories of, you know, really struggling to make ends meet. And we see news stories where the cost of food is continuing to go up.”
The Regina Food Bank vice-president said the biggest trend they saw is far more working people.
“Eighteen per cent of our clients now are people that are working full time,” said David Froh. “Even when you’re working hard to get ahead, if your wage doesn’t meet the living wage, sadly, you’re probably coming into a food bank.”
Froh added The Regina Food Bank is serving double the amount of new Canadians and retirees on a fixed income; 43 per cent of their clients are children.
“This spring when we’re talking about feeding 12- to 13-thousand people a month, I hope people in our community feel good that they fund the food bank,” he said. “I also think it’s a loud call to action that we have to do something about the root causes as to why so many children, so many retirees and new Canadians are lining up outside our door every single day.”
In an email statement, the Saskatchewan government stated they are committed to ensuring affordability for residents in the province.
“With every annual budget by investing over $2 billion in direct payments or forgone revenue to support seniors, families, students, and individuals,” the statement read.