Thanks, Shawn. I think those policy positions are supported broadly by the food bank movement across Canada.
I have the pleasure, actually, of operating the food bank in Regina, Saskatchewan. We're a community of about 200,000 people, and in any given month we're serving upwards of 7,500 or 8,000 people in our community who rely on the food bank for a portion of their food supply.
Remember, of course, that food banks deal with the poorest in our communities. No one chooses to be poor, and no one chooses to use the food bank. They're there because of circumstances that have dictated that, for whatever reason, they're unable to provide food for their family or food for themselves as individuals.
Food banks are really an emergency food supply only. We certainly don't intend to be the primary source of food for all these families. But as Shawn indicated, over 40% of those assisted across the country are children; in our province it's around 47%. These are individuals, of course, who through no fault of their own find themselves dependent on a system of food banks for their nutritional needs.
As was mentioned, hunger and poverty is a multidimensional issue, and I don't think the solutions are simple either. We've been focusing our work at the Regina food bank on moving beyond simply providing emergency food to providing training and education for the people who use the food banks. We believe that in the long term the best solution is to ensure that people have access to employment, access to life skills training, access to employment training.
We've just finished a research project looking at the possibility of food banks becoming a labour force intermediary. We believe as well that food banks can be a unique portal to other agencies and other services in our community, including access to employment training and access to employment. We certainly need to find those kinds of unique and innovative solutions, utilizing not just food banks but other community-based organizations that can, I think, be part of the framework of helping to resolve this long-standing issue of hunger and poverty in our communities.