The recession that has hammered the Canadian economy through the past year drove tens of thousands more Canadians to food banks, nowhere more so than on the Prairies.
In Alberta where economic decline has been the most dramatic, almost 54,000 people visited food banks in March 2009, a 61 percent increase over March 2008, according to a report published Nov. 17 by Food Banks Canada.
Nationally, the increase in use was 18 percent. In Saskatchewan, despite having the strongest provincial economy, food bank use was up six percent to almost 19,000.
In Manitoba, the 48,000 clients in March was an 18 percent increase over last year.
At a news conference on Parliament Hill, Food Banks Canada executive director Katharine Schmidt said an estimated 88,000 – 11 percent – of food bank users were rural. Some rural food bank operators suggest the actual rural usage may be larger because some rural residents and families drive to the closest city so their friends and neighbours don’t see them at a food bank.
“Hunger in rural Canada is a reality and communities have responded to the problem by adopting the food bank model,” said the Food Banks Canada annual HungerCount report. “Of the 781 food banks and food programs that submitted a survey for HungerCount 2009, 350 were located in areas with populations of less than 10,000.”
