With the release of the hunger count by Food Banks Canada, the numbers should ring alarm bells for every Canadian about the state of hunger in a country considered one of the richest and most livable in the world.
Night after night, we continue to hear the words food insecurity as millions of Canadians go hungry every day. This is a tragedy that should not be happening as grocery stores, food producers, and manufacturers throw away tons of consumable food every day.
I think the first phrase that bothers me is the term food insecurity. These people are not food insecure, they are hungry near the point of severe malnutrition, causing drastic impacts on their physical and psychological well-being.
The notion in my mind when I hear the words food is insecure is that there is not enough food to go around. That's food insecurity!
These people are hungry, and that is what it should remain. Many of them are children, seniors, and those living on fixed incomes.
This, combined with the recent unemployment numbers, which show those between 15 and 30 having close to a 30% unemployment rate, is a sign of a failed economy that has progressively gotten worse over the last 30 years.
Our politicians' rhetorical jabs at one another do nothing to help the situation, as both Carney and Poilievre are more than happy to get photo ops at area food banks, smiling as they put together food hampers for the many hungry in our country.
Carney's school lunch program should be seen as a useless, mean gesture to any Canadian out there. Social programs such as this should not be means-tested if a child is hungry at school and needs to be fed! Just because a parent might make enough money does not help. Means tests do not consider their other costs that prevent them from providing the primary necessities of life.
Poilievre has made his move on inflation, calling it the main culprit in rising food costs. Yes, the deficit does place some burden on inflation, but so many other factors also need to be considered when calculating the rising costs of food items. Leaving his rhetoric again, like Carney's, empty and void of a reasonable solution.
One of the main things I can focus on is greed. As people spend less at grocery stores. They are beginning to increase their prices. Why? Because our supermarkets are monopolies responsible to their shareholders, anything that reduces their profit margins also reduces dividends. So, the consumer continues to pay a premium on greed and greed alone.
The other is waste! There is no viable reason why so much food in this Country goes into our landfills rather than into the hands of Canadians. This is another reason that prices remain high. Supply is not an issue, as worldwide food production still exceeds demand; rather than dropping prices at retail or at the point of origin, the excess is wasted in landfills or left to rot in the fields.
Canada needs to allow its citizens to thrive, live, and work so that each and every Canadian's basic needs do not go unfulfilled. This is why we elect Governments to protect those most vulnerable from falling between the cracks of a system that threw most Canadians overboard thirty-five years ago.
These are the needs the Government has to address, and after that, a great many other issues will ultimately take care of themselves.
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