The Grey Bruce Poverty Task Force is calling on the government to take action and fight food insecurity.
This is in response to the 2023 Cost of Eating Well report, released by Grey Bruce Public Health. The report found that 17.5 per cent of people in Grey Bruce struggle to buy the food needed to sustain their families.
"The numbers at our food banks are only increasing," said Jill Umbach, coordinator of the task force. "Community meal programs are also seeing numbers increasing. I think it's really important to understand that our numbers have jumped very high, in some cases 300 per cent for community meal programs during the pandemic."
Umbach said that while donating to your local food bank is important, and definitely needs to be kept up with, it won't solve the problem at its core.
"Feeding people isn't going to solve food insecurity," she said. "Therefore, we need to look at the whole food system. We need to look at strategies that can counter food insecurity."
Part of this call to action, the task force is releasing information over the next seven weeks on what needs to be done to nip food insecurity in the bud.
"First is really looking at employment, better paying jobs," said Umbach. She cited the annual living wage, released by the United Way Grey Bruce and the Grey Bruce Poverty Task Force. "Right now people are surviving on less pay. So we are advocating for better quality jobs in terms of income, but also benefits."
Many community members are working multiple part time jobs with no benefits. That affects their ability to pay for food, due to having to pay for services or needs traditionally covered by a benefit plan.
Umbach also outlined a pilot for automatic tax filing, something the task force highly supports as it will get money back into pockets.
"We also believe that it's something for the government to be addressing, in terms of showing some leadership around the policies and interventions that would assist low income households in our community," she said. "That means looking at things like perhaps a guaranteed basic income, which would them support everybody to be able to afford the rising cost of living and it would fluctuate up and down."
For the average person looking to help the situation, Umbach urges you to continue donating to food banks and community food programs and call your local member of parliament or member of provincial parliament.
"It has to be a joint collective effort," she said. "It's not going to be solved by our charitable sector. They are going to meet the need for food, but we are advocating that we need to be working with our member of parliament at the provincial and federal levels to change the system."
You can find resources and more information that will continue to be released in the coming weeks here.
