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Food Bank use up in Nanaimo, across Canada: report

Nov 18, 2016 | 3:36 PM

NANAIMO – A new report from Food Banks Canada shows more and more Canadians are struggling to put food on the table.

The report says as of this past March, food bank usage is up 1.3 per cent across Canada compared to March 2015. Peter Sinclair, executive director of the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank in Nanaimo, says it’s a trend they’ve noticed locally.

“Year to date we’re up about five per cent,” said Sinclair. “But there was a significant jump that we saw in the early summer beginning in June and right through July and August and it’s continued onto now. We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of people accessing the food bank.”

Alarmingly, one third of the food bank clients are children. Sinclair says he can’t pinpoint one cause of the increase in the number of clients. He says there are likely a number of reasons why.

“Lack of well paying jobs, losing a job. We’ve also seen a number of refugees begin accessing our services,” said Sinclair. “So those are people who are now in our community who a year ago were not and so we’re providing service there. But that certainly doesn’t account for the dramatic increase that we’ve seen. It is one part of it.”

Sinclair also believes that society has to start looking at why people use their service.

“One of the things I’m really happy to see in the Food Banks Canada report is a call for a guaranteed income,” said Sinclair. “I think that’s certainly something we have to look at if we’re going to stop the need for food banks. What I think is great about that it removes a lot of bureaucracy around the system.”

A number of food bank drives are underway as the busy holiday season approaches but Sinclair says what they really need is cash.

He says Loaves and Fishes can stretch the dollars through programs with local grocery stores and it also keeps their trucks on the road and their coolers and freezers working.