[Canada] Many Ontarians relying on food banks: report

From CTV

The Ontario Association of Food Banks says the number of food bank users has risen by an "alarming" 21.5 per cent since 2001, and more people are relying on food banks to feed their families.

The association released its Hunger Report at Queens Park Wednesday.

The report shows Ontario children make up half of the food bank recipients. There are more working poor and new Canadians who rely on food donations.

In the Greater Toronto Area an estimated 175,000 people use food banks each month -- half of those are new Canadians.

The study found the number of Ontario immigrants living below the poverty line has gone up from 25 per cent to 36 per cent between 1980 and 2000.

The association is calling on the province to step up efforts to reduce poverty in Ontario.

"More than ever before hunger is a daily tragedy for a growing number of Ontarians. A total of 338,563 Ontarians were served by food banks each month in 2005," association chairman Sandy Singer said.

"We need to see hunger and poverty not as a moral imperative and a matter of social justice, but as an issue of development, health and economic success," Singer added.

By comparison, the number of residents using food banks in two other provinces has decreased significantly.

The report shows Alberta saw a 16.6 per cent decline between 2001 and 2005, while Quebec saw a 9.1 per cent decline.

The Globe and Mail reports Ontario's benefit rates for a single parent with one child under 12 fell to $957 a month between 1995 and 2001. The rates were increased by three per cent by Premier Dalton McGuinty -- the first such increase in a decade.

More than half of the province's food bank users are on social assistance.

The first food banks opened 20 years ago as a stop-gap measure to provide an emergency supply of food to those in need in major cities.

Most users only visit once a month.