Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Davies, for the question. It's a very important one. There are a multitude of factors that are driving food insecurity. In our statement, we mention that poverty is the number one factor that is driving food insecurity, and that encompasses a multitude of factors.

Finance committee  The easiest one—which we highlighted in our statement and in our pre-budget submission—would be to create the groceries and essentials benefit. That would build on a system that we already have in terms of the GST/HST credit. The government has done that before, when they provided the one-off top-up to Canadians who were experiencing hardship due to inflation in 2023.

Finance committee  What the groceries and essentials benefit typically does is provide money to households that need it the most, households that are living on less than $25,000 a year.

Finance committee  Thank you so much for the question, and thank you for the kind words in acknowledging the work that Community Food Centres Canada is doing. We really appreciate that. We also really appreciate the government's efforts in implementing the national school food program. As members of the committee might know, we were the only country in the OECD community that did not have a similar program.

Finance committee  I'm sorry. Thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon to the committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Anthony Musiwa, and I am the senior policy adviser in the poverty action unit at Community Food Centres Canada. I am joined here by my colleague Jasmine Ramze Rezaee, who is the director of the poverty action unit at Community Food Centres Canada.