Human Resources Committee on Oct. 27th, 2026

[The Chair (Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Good morning, everyone.

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 51 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Pursuant to the motion adopted on Monday, February 23, 2026, the committee is meeting on food price inflation and the national school food program.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the Standing Orders. Those appearing online have had their sound tested and have been approved.

Before we begin, I would like to remind all those participating that all members have the option to participate in today's meeting in either official language, French or English. I would remind all those in the room to choose the channel that will give you the language that you're comfortable participating in and allow you to fully participate in the meeting when people are speaking either official language. For those appearing virtually, please click on the globe icon at the bottom of your screen and choose the language that you wish to participate in. Again, please wear your headsets so that you can fully participate.

If there is an interruption in translation, please get my attention, and we'll suspend while it is being corrected.

I have a couple of other points. Please silence your devices. For the protection of the translators, please refrain from tapping on the microphone boom. As well, please wait until I recognize you by name and direct all questions through me, the chair.

In the first hour, I would like to welcome our witnesses from the Breakfast Club of Canada, Julie Desharnais, president and chief executive officer; and Judith Barry, co-founder and government relations director, appearing in person.

From the Centre d'action bénévole Marguerite-Dubois, we have Valérie Marin, executive director, appearing in person.

From Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank Society, we have Melissa Lavoie, director of philanthropy and revenue generation, appearing by video conference.

Each witness has up to five minutes for their opening statement, and if you want to share that time, please advise the committee when you start.

We will begin with Madam Desharnais.

You have the floor for up to five minutes.

[Julie Desharnais, President and Chief Executive Officer, Breakfast Club of Canada]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

As CEO of Breakfast Club of Canada, a former social worker and the mother of five children, I am more concerned than ever for the well-being of Canadian children. Today, 2.4 million children in Canada live in a food insecure household. That is one in three. For more than 30 years, the club has been dedicated to fighting student food insecurity. With our community partners, we support more than 5,600 programs across the country, and demand keeps growing. In 2025-26, those very same programs reported spending close to 30% more than the year before for food.

Indigenous communities are even more vulnerable. Our mid-year survey shows that the cost of running these programs in schools in indigenous communities is about three times higher than in other schools and that it is more difficult to obtain affordable, high-quality food in indigenous communities. That is why the federal funding allocated to these communities, which currently accounts for about 23% of the total program budget, is so important and must be increased as soon as possible to address these circumstances.

As families continue to face economic pressures, international trade tensions and food supply chain challenges, investing in school food programs is more important than ever. These programs support children's health, learning and development while strengthening local agriculture, promoting Canadian-made food, enhancing food system resilience and advancing social equity. They are both an affordability measure for families and a strategic investment in Canada's future workforce.

According to the new Hunger Count 2026, children made over 700,000 visits to food banks. That represents one-third of all food bank clients and an increase of over 79% in five years.

As early as 2021, Hunger Count found that family visits to food banks increase when schools close and meal programs are not available. School meals are a real social safety net.

[Judith Barry, Co-Founder and Governmental Relations Director, Breakfast Club of Canada]

Mr. Chair, that safety net now has federal support. The $1-billion five-year commitment was first made in September 2021 and delivered in budget 2024 with the creation of the national school food program, but between the pledge and the first funded school, grocery prices rose by about 21%.

Those prices are continuing to rise. Since September 2021, the price of food purchased in stores has risen by about 28%.

In practical terms, the $1-billion pledge in 2021 now buys about 783 million dollars' worth of food—only 78¢ on the dollar. The commitment is unchanged, but its purchasing power has fallen.

Today, when divided among all the students in the country, the $200 million per year in federal funding amounts to $0.22 per child per day.

That said, funding for the national school food program helps the provinces and territories to expand access to their school food programs, but there is still work to be done. To build on this momentum, while responding to rising costs and implementation challenges, we propose four recommendations for budget 2027.

One, recognize the national school food program as a budget priority and match the $400 million invested by provinces, territories and municipalities.

Two, make the school food Infrastructure fund permanent and expand it. The 40 projects the club supported increased the number of students reached by 47%.

Three, invest in Canadian-grown food for school food programs.

Four, take a whole-of-government approach and provide the national vision, accountability and coordination needed to make school food a core pillar of children's health and well-being in Canada.

In conclusion, the AppEco cost-benefit analysis shows that every dollar invested returns nearly two dollars to society, starting with anticipated savings of over $1,000 per year for the average Canadian family—the very family now turning to food banks.

The national program has now been made permanent. The next phase will be crucial in enabling both the program and children to reach their full potential.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Barry.

Ms. Marin, you have five minutes.

[Valérie Marin, Executive Director, Centre d'action bénévole Marguerite-Dubois]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate in this study on food inflation and the national school food program.

My name is Valérie Marin, and I am the executive director of the Centre d'action bénévole Marguerite-Dubois in Bromont, which is located in the Brome‑Missisquoi RCM in Quebec. I am a trained social worker, and I recently completed a master's degree in food security at Laval University.

Today, I mainly want to share with you what we are seeing every day on the ground.

Requests for food assistance have been on the rise in our community for several years now. That is a serious concern, but what also worries me is the change in the profile of the people who are seeking our services. We are now helping two-parent families in which both parents work but whose incomes are no longer sufficient to cover all of their basic needs. We are also seeing an increase in demand from older people, particularly for food services that help them remain in their own homes.

Rising food prices are putting a lot of pressure on household budgets. Families have to choose between food, housing, heating and transportation. In a rural area like Brome‑Missisquoi, long distances and transportation costs exacerbate these difficulties.

Today, having a job no longer necessarily guarantees a family's food security. As a community organization, we respond to those needs through food assistance, community meals, meals on wheels and various support services.

Despite our best efforts, we cannot offset the effects of the rising cost of living on our own. When families with two working parents have to ask for food assistance, it makes us think about the role that schools can play in ensuring access to nutritious food.

I am not an expert on the national school food program, and I cannot claim to know how well it is working. However, based on my experience, I can say that it does help to meet needs. Such a program provides additional support for families, as long as it is sustainable, accessible, free from stigma and tailored to the local context, particularly the supply and transportation-related challenges faced by rural areas.

That brings me to another important point. While some people are struggling to put food on the table, we are continuing to waste large quantities of perfectly good food.

In Brome‑Missisquoi, we have worked with our partners to develop a collective approach to recover, process and redistribute unsold food. I compiled data on this initiative as part of my master's thesis. During the period under review, in 2025, nearly 80,000 kilograms of food were recovered and over 14,000 meals were prepared and redistributed.

We learned through this experience that it is possible to improve the use of available food resources to meet real needs, but it also taught us another valuable lesson: Food that is being given away for free is not always accessible food. It takes equipment, staff, infrastructure and effective coordination to collect, transport, store, process and redistribute that food. Volunteer work is an extraordinary asset, but it cannot replace stable and predictable funding.

Based on these findings, I would like to make three recommendations to the committee.

First, we need to strengthen measures that promote affordable access to healthy food, particularly for working families and seniors with limited incomes. Food assistance cannot be the only response to the rising cost of living. We also need to do something about the conditions that prevent households from meeting their basic needs.

Second, we need to ensure the sustainability of food programs, particularly in schools, while taking into account the actual program costs and the specific circumstances of rural communities. These programs must be able to operate long term without constantly relying on ad hoc funding. The implementation of these programs must also take into account the local context and the resources that are already available in the communities.

Third, I recommend that the federal government look into all of the ways that it could provide sustainable support for initiatives that recover and process food surpluses, whether legislative, regulatory or financial. For example, it could consider passing legislation aimed at reducing food waste.

In Brome‑Missisquoi, we have demonstrated that it is possible to implement practical solutions. However, the development and sustainability of those solutions still too often depends on ad hoc funding and the ability of organizations to mobilize their resources, even though these initiatives help to reduce food waste, use existing resources and contribute to the food security of our communities. It would therefore be useful to better recognize their contribution and support the infrastructure, equipment and human resources necessary to run them.

I would like to close by reminding the committee that solutions already exist in our communities. We have shown that it is possible to implement practical, collective initiatives to improve food security. However, in order for these initiatives to really contribute to sustainable change, they must be recognized and supported in a way that is befitting of their contribution.

I hope that the recommendations made today will be given serious consideration and, more importantly, result in real action.

Thank you, everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Marin.

Go ahead, Madam Lavoie, for five minutes.

[Melissa Lavoie, Director of Philanthropy and Revenue Generation, Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank Society]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to share my professional experience with the impacts of food price inflation.

My name is Melissa Lavoie, director of philanthropy and revenue generation at the Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank. I'm joining you from Nanaimo, British Columbia, on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation. For nearly 20 years, I worked in wealth management, most recently at a credit union that provided funding to non-profits in our community. About a year ago, I moved from banking to food banking.

What surprised me the most is that almost everyone I talk to has a Loaves and Fishes story as a donor, partner or client. My hairstylist and her husband moved from Ontario for a job on Vancouver Island. When they arrived, the job did not materialize. For several months, the Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank was how they met their essential needs. This is what we're seeing. More and more people are doing fine, until one thing goes wrong.

Loaves and Fishes is much more than a community food bank. We are a regional food recovery and distribution organization. Seven days a week, our trucks collect surplus food from more than 40 grocery stores, wholesalers and retailers. We sort it for its highest use: good food for people first, animal feed for farmers second, compost third, then landfill as a last resort. We run 20 free food markets on mid and north Vancouver Island. We supply more than 100 non-profits from Victoria to Haida Gwaii with food free of charge. In 2025, we distributed 12.1 million dollars' worth of food. This year, we distributed 8.1 million dollars' worth by the end of September, with the months with the greatest needs still ahead of us.

Tomorrow, we will officially open the Tom Harris Regional Food Centre. It's a $16-million, 24,000-square-foot hub funded by all levels of government. It was built to ensure food security across coastal B.C. because the need is that large, with no sign of slowing.

This brings me to food prices. The national average treats Canada like one grocery store, and it is not. Almost everything on Vancouver Island arrives by ferry or marine freight. That cost shows up in every trip to the grocery store. Our island is long. We have a satellite warehouse in Port Hardy. That is a five-hour drive north of Nanaimo. The north island communities we serve have roughly 8,000 people. Last year, over 1,400 of them made over 17,000 visits to free food markets. That's about one in five people relying directly on us for food.

Who comes to us now? We are deliberately a low-barrier organization. We do not collect much demographic data, but our markets give people groceries to take home and cook, so most of our clients have a place to call home. What they don't have is enough left at the end of the month. We see people still in their workboots on their way home from construction sites, as well as families, students, seniors, people living with disabilities and many newcomers. Our market information is now produced in six languages. We don't meet all of anyone's needs. We are a supplement, but if a week of groceries means someone can pay their cellphone bill, they can then take the call that gets them the job. If it means they can make their rent or fix the car they drive to work, that's the win. Food banks are quietly holding up people's jobs and access to housing.

Inflation is squeezing our supply side too. Retailers are managing waste more tightly. There is less food to recover and it is often in worse shape. We work harder for every kilogram, but scale makes things possible. Last week, a large retailer called us after a fire. We used eight tractor-trailers for 208 pallets of food and essentials like laundry soap and toilet paper. We'll sanitize it and get it distributed to families instead of the landfill. A small food bank could not have taken that call. We can because of the public and private partners that have invested in us.

What I'd like you to take away is this: National inflation figures don't describe what a household on Vancouver Island can afford. The same food costs more, depending on where you live. When food banks have to be built at this scale, let me tell you that it says something about food inflation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Lavoie.

I want to welcome a number of new members to HUMA.

We'll now begin our first six-minute round.

We'll begin with Madam Kronis for six minutes.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of the witnesses who have come this morning. I appreciate the insights you've shared with us.

Ms. Lavoie, I want to go back to the very last thing that you said about how the national food inflation figures don't describe the reality of our lives on Vancouver Island. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that a bit.

[Melissa Lavoie]

Vancouver Island is a very western region. It is very isolated. We have no bridges and no transportation. The island itself is very long and has a diverse environment, with people often not living anywhere close to grocery stores. We also supply food as far up as Haida Gwaii. To get there, you have to go to the north end of Vancouver Island, take a ferry for about seven hours and transfer to another ferry to arrive in Haida Gwaii. We send food there at great expense to ensure food security in the most remote regions of the B.C. coast.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much for that.

Congratulations on the opening of the Tom Harris Regional Food Centre. As a member of the community, I am very aware of how hard-won that project was and how much true community effort went into building it. It is going to help our communities help those who need help, and it's also going to help with food recovery, keeping as much waste as possible out of our limited landfill space.

I'm wondering if you could share a little more about how the low-barrier free food markets will work and the difference they make not just in our community of Nanaimo, but across Vancouver Island.

[Melissa Lavoie]

Certainly.

The regional hub in Nanaimo, the Tom Harris Regional Food Centre, is a centralized piece of community infrastructure. That allows us to send food out, the way we distribute, directly to clients as a free food market. Picture it like a pop-up. We require no infrastructure of our own in the free food market system. We partner with a local organization, sometimes a church and, most recently, Vancouver Island University.

For any community that wants a free food market, all they need is space, some tables, Internet and volunteers. Our driver shows up with the truck, with the food. It's one employee, and the rest are volunteers. They can deliver a free food market to any community across Vancouver Island and the B.C. coast that needs one. This is smart use of community dollars. It all comes from one centralized piece of infrastructure.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thanks for that.

Another thing I really admire about the work that Loaves and Fishes does is the way it supports other organizations, particularly organizations that feed seniors and people in community living situations.

Can you describe that program?

[Melissa Lavoie]

We currently supply over 100 community partners. These can be organizations, everything from Island Health to school boards to organizations like the Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul and many others.

We supply them with food free of charge to run their programs so that they can use their limited resources on that programming. It doesn't make sense, in our opinion, to have many organizations buying trucks, hiring staff and going around collecting food to be recovered. Rather, one centralized organization, Loaves and Fishes, can do this much more efficiently and cost-effectively and then provide that food to other organizations.

We recently launched a software program called FoodCopia that will enhance this even more. Further away, organizations will be able to look online in real time and see our inventory of recovered food, and we'll be able to ship that out to them directly, becoming a true food wholesaler of recovered food to community organizations free of charge.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

That's a really amazing accomplishment. I commend you for it.

The Loaves and Fishes network now encompasses more than 100 organizations and indigenous communities along the coast. I want to dig into your supply chain and give you the opportunity to talk about what makes it hardest to get food to smaller or more remote communities.

[Melissa Lavoie]

Transportation, hands down, is the most expensive aspect of our operation. We all need to talk about the rising price of fuel, keeping trucks on the road and hiring accredited, qualified truck drivers to move that food. We rely heavily on the BC Ferries network as well, which is a very expensive system. We partner with Helicopters Without Borders in some cases. When they are flying people into remote communities, we will add food to their load when they have space.

Without question, transportation costs are the biggest challenge to getting food to those locations.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

One of the biggest challenges we have mid-island in general is access to commercial kitchen space. Can you talk a little bit about the commercial kitchen space you're building at the Tom Harris Regional Food Centre, what distance we have to go toward that and how members of our community can help?

[Melissa Lavoie]

We have a roughed-in commercial kitchen space in the new facility that will allow us to improve our percentage of recovered food that can be delivered to humans rather than diverted to animal food. Just as in our home kitchens, food can be canned, frozen or turned into soups, stews and all sorts of things rather than go to animal feed. But it needs a processing kitchen to do that. The current cost of putting the equipment in the roughed-in space is $500,000. That will allow us to, as I said, distribute more good food to humans across Vancouver Island and coastal B.C.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Kronis.

Mr. Villeneuve, you have six minutes.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here with us this morning.

Ms. Marin, thank you for joining us as the executive director of the Centre d'action bénévole Marguerite-Dubois. You have been working at the intersection of food security and community action for several years now. We obviously know each other quite well. I worked with you when I served as the mayor of Bromont. I want to take this opportunity to commend you for your leadership, which has brought the community together and helped to build a volunteer centre that serves as a model throughout the riding. Thank you for that, Ms. Marin.

I also want to recognize that you have put in place initiatives to prevent food waste, use food surpluses and help vulnerable people, including children. I therefore think that you are very well placed to tell us about the real impacts of food inflation and about the way government measures are helping to support our families. In 2024, we announced the implementation of the 2024-25 national school food program, to which we have allocated more than $1 billion over five years. I also heard other witnesses talking about it. We know that there is still work to be done.

Let's start with that, Ms. Marin. To your knowledge, how is the national school food program helping families?

[Valérie Marin]

My expertise lies more in the real impact on the families that I work with and that we help.

There is no doubt that the national school food program reduces the financial strain on families. This is not just about feeding children at school. It is also about relieving financial strain on families. I think it is important to mention that because this also helps parents who have non-standard schedules or who work full time with organizational issues and logistics. I also want to say that, when there is a program at school that is open to everyone, it helps to reduce stigma. Children are not singled out based on their parents' income. School food programs give families a sense of dignity and ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Marin.

As you mentioned earlier, you have worked on food surplus recovery and redistribution projects. Can you tell us a little about the results that you have seen on the ground?

[Valérie Marin]

We implemented an integrated food collection, processing and redistribution system.

Incidentally, I would like to thank Ms. Lavoie for what she shared with us. It was very interesting.

We have this system in the RCM. It is the Brome‑Missisquoi RCM's anti-waste committee. All areas of the RCM participate in it.

Together, we recover all of the surplus food from our vegetable growers and grocery stores. When the food looks good as is and people can prepare it themselves, we redistribute it. Otherwise, we take all of the surplus that cannot be redistributed as is and process it in our kitchens. Thanks to a grant from the local food infrastructure fund, the RCM was able to set up three processing kitchens in the region, so any remaining surplus that needs to be processed is sent to our processing kitchens. The food is processed there and then redistributed.

I want to say that this is quite a logistical undertaking. It is a great project.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Let's move on quickly, because I have a few more questions for you.

First, you just described what you are doing as far as recovery initiatives are concerned. To what extent do these initiatives, when combined with the national school food program, help to alleviate income insecurity? What is the connection between these initiatives and the program?

[Valérie Marin]

What we are doing in terms of redistribution certainly provides some relief. We know that the food portion of families' budgets is the one where people are able to make the most adjustments. By providing food assistance, we are enabling people to properly clothe their children and pay school fees. Sometimes, they also request assistance for extracurricular activities. This takes some of the financial pressure off other areas of the household budget.