Record-breaking national food bank numbers reflect the crisis in Manitoba: Harvest CEO | CBC News

A new report revealing Canada has reached record-breaking numbers of people using food banks is “astonishing,” says the president of Harvest Manitoba — but not surprising in a province where well over 50,000 people now rely on them every month.

The latest HungerCount report from Food Banks Canada says there were more than two million food bank visits across the country in March of this year, the highest number ever recorded. That represents a six per cent increase compared with 2023, and a 90 per cent jump from 2019. Twelve of the more than 2,500 food banks reflected in the report are in Manitoba.

“What stays with me is that we keep going in the wrong direction,” Harvest Manitoba president and CEO Vince Barletta told CBC Manitoba’s Information Radio host Marcy Markusa Monday morning.

Barletta said since the COVID-19 pandemic began, there has been a 122 per cent jump in the number of households using food banks in Manitoba. And those “absolutely unprecedented numbers” don’t seem to be slowing down: Compared with March 2023, there was a 30 per cent increase in Manitoba food bank use in the same month this year.

“So it makes a huge challenge for our organization — for the 380 agencies that we work with, all their volunteers — to continue to get that job done,” he said. “If you and your family are able to support us with your food, your funds, your time, there’s been no better time.”

The growing need for food banks in Manitoba is something Nicole Marginet, a mother of three, has experienced firsthand, as she’s tried to stretch her grocery budget to feed a family that includes two growing teenagers amid rising grocery prices.

“It makes it hard to cover all of our costs,” Marginet, who’s on disability, said as she made her monthly stop at her community’s food bank on Monday.

Barletta said the latest report shows a serious need for food banks and related organizations to work with governments and have “a grown-up conversation about poverty and food security, including developing a food security strategy right here in Manitoba.”

The report also raised concerns about the ability of food banks to keep up with rising demand, noting that in the past year nearly 30 per cent of food banks reported running out of food before demand was met, while another 56 per cent gave out less food than usual to avoid running out.

Barletta said while Harvest Manitoba has never had to turn anyone away from visiting a food bank, “it gets tougher and tougher with each passing month” as costs increase.

This year, the non-profit is spending more than $3 million on food — about a third of its total budget — which he said is a “huge, huge hit” for a group that, before the pandemic, didn’t have to spend a single dollar on food because it got so many donations.

“Around a quarter or more of all the food that we distribute is food that we have to buy. It never used to be that way. We have to get things going in the other direction,” he said.

“Otherwise at some point, I don’t know when that day is, we’re going to hit that cliff and it’s going to be very challenging for a lot of Manitobans.”

Barletta pointed to a number of reasons why people turn to food banks, including what the report called the “one-two punch” of housing and food inflation, as well as to a number of policy recommendations Food Banks Canada made for governments in its report.

The roughly 30 national recommendations include rebuilding the social safety net through measures such as a groceries and essentials benefit for people with low incomes, and a rent assist program like the one already used in Manitoba to address the housing affordability crisis.