Thank you very much for inviting me to speak before you today.
I'd like to begin by saying that food banks across the country are very pleased to see the federal government develop a new national food policy for Canada. Food banks have changed with the times. They have changed their approach to food, including the types and diversity of food they're able to provide, and they want to see the federal government changing with the times as well.
We commend the federal government on the inclusive structure of the new national food policy framework, and we also commend the inclusion of household food security as a prime focus of the new policy. In a country where food is relatively inexpensive but where farmers have trouble making ends meet, where farm workers constitute some of our most vulnerable residents, where four million people are food insecure, and where more than 860,000 people access food banks each month, clearly new ideas are needed.
I'd like to address two major points this afternoon. First is the idea of the affordability of food, and second is northern and indigenous food insecurity.
First is affordability. Groceries account for about 10% of southern Canadian spending, 14% if you count restaurant food. This is one of the lowest proportions spent on food in the world. When we see the federal food policy consultation document talk about increasing affordability, we get a little nervous, because it would be difficult to make food any more affordable for the average consumer. If you try to make food cheaper, you're very likely going to be taking money out of the hands of farmers and food workers in Canada and across the globe.
In many ways, food insecurity is not about food at all. The main way to increase access to nutritious and safe food among low-income Canadians, in particular, is to increase incomes, which is a responsibility that clearly falls under the forthcoming poverty reduction strategy.
We were very happy to see that there are close linkages between the development of the national food policy and the poverty reduction strategy. That's very good news.
Food Banks Canada has released a new report about poverty reduction. We released it today. It's called “Nowhere to Turn”. This report takes a close look at the 1.3 million working-age single adults who live in poverty and struggle to afford food in Canada, and it puts forward recommendations to bring this group into the economic mainstream. This is one of the things Food Banks Canada looks at in its advocacy and government relations efforts.
Because it can't be stressed enough, I'll repeat that only increasing incomes will improve access to nutritious and safe food on a broad scale. When a single adult on social assistance is living on $8,000 a year—as hundreds of thousands of people in Canada do—we are very far, indeed, from affordability.
Of course the situation in the north is quite different. The cost of food in the north is more than double what it is in the south, and levels of food insecurity are much higher. One in five people in the territories are food insecure, with much higher figures among indigenous populations. Nunavut has the highest level of indigenous food insecurity of any high-income country in the world.
Conversations about northern food insecurity tend to focus on nutrition north Canada, and we're pleased to see that the federal government is planning changes to this program. We're looking forward to seeing what that looks like. However, nutrition north Canada is a small and limited initiative of about $120 million, an amount that is really dwarfed by the size of the problem. If we are to truly address food insecurity in the north, we need to look beyond nutrition north Canada.
Increasing incomes is obviously an essential part of this, but only a part. I would encourage the committee to look closely at the ways many northern communities are addressing their problems with food through traditional practices including hunting, trapping, and fishing, as well as the ways the federal government could support these initiatives.
In research that Food Banks Canada has done, we have found that grassroots, community-level programs struggle mightily in the north just to stay afloat from season to season. There is a pressing need for new sources of funding for something that has demonstrable and outsized benefits for communities.
Thanks very much. I look forward to your questions.