Statistics Canada has released its annual Canadian Income Survey. And the news is discouraging, to say the least. Some 1.8 million more Canadians were food-insecure in 2022 than in the previous year…
If this seems like ‘old news’, it is, nonetheless, the latest information Stats Can has fully digested on the issue. And the prognosis for 2023 is, if anything, darker.
According to the Survey, 8.7 million Canadians reported some level of food insecurity in 2022. That’s just under 23 percent. And you might just as well round that up to ‘one in four’.
The raw findings…
Among the key findings of the Survey
- The median after-tax income of Canadian families and unattached individuals was $70,500 in 2022, a decrease from $73,000 in 2021, adjusted for inflation.
- The annual inflation rate in 2022 was 6.8 percent, which also contributed to the decline in income from the previous year.
- Canada’s official poverty rate was 9.9 percent in 2022, increasing by 2.5 percentage points from 7.4 percent in 2021 and approaching the 2019 pre-pandemic rate of 10.3 percent.
Specifically, in relation to food security:
- The proportion of those who were marginally food insecure remained relatively stable, at 6.0 percent.
- The number of those who were moderately (10.9 percent) increased.
- And the severely food-insecure (6.0 percent) also increased.
In other words… If you’re just into the food-insecure zone, you still have some chance against starvation. A chance to fight your way out. But future, inexorable, food price increases could relegate you to the lower, more severe realms of food insecurity.
Authoritative analysis
Economist Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work in Vancouver, told CBC News.
“There’s no doubt that this challenge we’re facing right now isn’t hitting all Canadians equally. […] It’s people who can least afford it who have the least protection against higher prices and higher housing costs and so on, and these numbers absolutely confirm it.”
Focusing on food insecurity, he waxes more emotional: “We’ve seen enormous increases in food prices. [And] we’ve seen enormous increases in profits in the food industry, the food retail sector. So that is hitting hard. And that, to me, is a real worry.”
My take
I have to agree with Stanford when he sums up: “If we’re a rich country like Canada, and we can’t assure that everyone has enough food on the table, then clearly we need to do things better.”
No wonder protest groups have organized a month-long boycott of Loblaw’s stores this month. And a few renegade hot heads are calling on other folks who are ‘mad as Hell and not going to take it anymore’ to steal from Loblaw’s on May 12.
‘Doing better’?
What does ‘doing better’ entail? Many feel the big 5 supermarket chains – which control our food supply – have to change their business models. And lower their retail prices. At least for the basic, staple foods we all rely on to maintain to fill our bellies and ensure that we’re getting proper nutrition.
The supermarket moguls must – sooner or later – accept the social and ethical burden of sacrificing some profits to make sure the lowest-income Canadians can feed themselves and their families. With ownership comes responsibility.
~ Maggie J.