No Hunger For Solutions

Everything’s growing these days: escalating debt, rising carbon emissions, and a heightened distrust of all things political.  These are becoming the defining issues of the day, and due to their tenacity, they’re likely to become ever more contentious with season of fiscal constraints ready to descend upon us.Yet there are other things that are growing that are just as vital but hardly as politically charged.  One of these issues is hunger in Canada.  This week it was reported by Food Banks Canada that the highest number of Canadians ever are frequenting food banks right across the country.  In case you missed it, here are some of the realities:

• Last March, 794,738 people received help from food bank programs – an 18% jump over the same month a year previous
• Alberta reported the highest jump – a 61% rise
• The three provinces most hit by the recession account for three-quarters of all food bank use
• 10% of those looking to food banks for help were coming for the first time
• A full 28% of food banks declare they don’t have enough funds and 31% are running out of food supplies

Perhaps the most troubling statistic of all was that 37% of those served by food bank programs were children.  Considering that child poverty is escalating again even though Parliament had committed itself to its elimination by the year 2000, the scourge of hungry children should hardly be a surprise.Food Banks Canada is merely a umbrella organization, but if you want to hear the real authentic voice of food banks in this country you would have to dig down to the provincial and community levels.  It’s there that the pain is being felt and the true stories of hunger are being told – it was their own research that was forwarded to Food Banks Canada itself.I can speak with some authority on this, as I’m still the volunteer co-director of the London Food Bank.  We’ve never gone through anything like this – the effects are dramatic.  Over my 23-year tenure in the agency there have always been a steady stream of challenges and a generous community responded in kind.  Now, the same people who donated to us in various corporate food drives are now seeking our help.  It’s humiliating, I’m sure, but it highlights a deeper problem, one that speaks to what we tolerate as citizens.  The main reason food bank numbers are so high is not so much related to the current recession, but to the intolerably high user counts that frequented such agencies over the years when things were good.  Flush with more cash than they were used to over an extended period of time, all levels of government failed take the opportunity to slay the dragon of child poverty.Just what are the chances, given the roughly $60 billion deficit that will have to be paid off, that this stain on our international reputation will be taken seriously compared to those other issues that garner such attention?  Next to nil.In good times and bad, food banks in communities all across the country have struggled to elevate the issue of hunger to the national stage and each time have come away empty.  And now, with plenty of excuses about the environment, the deficit, or the political blame game in Ottawa, the prospect of even more hungry children being added to the ranks of poverty with little concern is inevitable.  Any country that can’t find a way to feed its own kids has veered off its ethical path.  And as we stray, an increasing number of kids will go to bed hungry - a fine example to present to the world.