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The fight for foodFor Torontonians on social assistance, buying healthy food on a tight budget is nearly impossible. The fight to end food inaccessibility inspired the launch of the “Put Food in the Budget” campaign. And for many, the fight hits close to home. Ghenwa Yehia│April 13, 2009 Mary Milne, 66, can’t remember the last time she had a fresh piece of meat. Whenever she goes grocery shopping, she usually gets her meat from the reduced price section of the grocery store that has nearly past due meats that are just about to expire. Ang Roy would love it if she could indulge in a slice of cheese or a handful of nuts. Like Milne, Roy often buys the foods that are slightly past their due dates because they are cheaper. Armed with this penny-saving tactic and a bag full of coupons, Roy barely has enough money to get the essentials let alone the nutrient-rich foods that are a part of wholesome, healthy diets. Both of these women are on social assistance. They say their limited budget makes it impossible to enjoy simple food items required by Canada’s daily food guide, like meat and dairy products. Recently, a group of social advocacy organizations, including the Association of Local Public Health Associations, the Social Planning Network of Ontario and the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction, banded together to form a coalition and called on the Ontario government to include a food stipend in the 2009 provincial budget for anyone on social assistance to make healthy food more accessible. The coalition created the “Put Food in the Budget” campaign and proposed $100 healthy food supplement that aimed to make healthy food more accessible to people like Milne and Roy, who struggle with low-income budgets. The coalition was in part a reaction to the release of the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s annual Report Card on Canadians' Health in February 2009 which detailed startling discrepancies of basic, healthy food costs across Ontario. The study found that the cost of nutritional food remains unregulated and can vary from city to city in each province. That means that some Canadians, depending on where they live, can pay more than double to almost six times the price for foods like eggs, milk and bread. "Access to basic healthy food should be a right, not a privilege," Stephen Samis, director of health policy at the Heart and Stroke Foundation told Toronto Star. In the Star article Samis explains that many Canadians have trouble affording healthy food where they shop. Jonah Schein, a coordinator at the Stop Community Food Centre, a member of the $100 supplement coalition argues that the extra money would have a potentially dramatic impact on the lives of people on social assistance. “The high cost of eating fresh fruit and vegetables makes it a luxury for people on social assistance,” he says. “They should be entitled to the dignity of a healthy diet.” Schein works to petition the public in support of the cause, promotes letter-writing campaigns to the government, and was most recently involved in a rally at Queen’s Park to make the issue public. “Without action, thousands of low-income people are at continued risk of chronic illness, heart disease, diabetes, depression and high blood pressure,” says Schein. But it seems that the provincial government didn’t quite get the coalition’s message. On March 29, the 2009 provincial budget was released with no mention of $100 food stipend for people on social assistance. Instead, the budget proposed changes that will be slow to come to fruition, many of them beginning in 2010, and focus on helping low- to middle-income Ontarians without addressing the concerns of those totally dependant on social assistance. Many of these propositions come as a reaction to the current economic climate. Ontario's unemployment jumped to almost eight per cent in February. In contrast to the $100 supplement coalition, Michael Oliphant, director of research and communications at the Daily Bread Food Bank, sees the budget propositions as realistic. “The proposition of the extra $100 for people on social assistance is unrealistic and in some cases unfair,” he explains. “There are so many people that classify as working poor, people who have jobs and don’t rely on social assistance but still don’t make enough to be over the poverty line, that would be excluded from this stipend. Those people and families don’t have enough money to eat well too, and this food stipend would not address their needs.” The campaign fails to address the issue of the working poor in its mandate, only targeting those who are on social assistance. Oliphant also notes another issue the coalition does not address concerning the $100 supplement: there would be no way to ensure the extra money is spent on healthy food. While he does not underestimate people’s ability to determine what they should and shouldn’t use their own money for, he argues that a guaranteed way for the government to affect positive change is to target the broader issues of poverty, such as housing costs. “The issue isn’t even so much the cost of food,” he says. “It’s the fact that people on social assistance and on low-income budgets spend almost all of their income, about 77 per cent of it, on housing. Addressing housing would be important because if people weren’t spending so much on housing, they would have money leftover to spend on things like nutritional foods.” In the long run addressing the broader issue of housing will have more positive effects on a larger number of people. Put in those terms, it is clear why the $100 healthy food supplement may seem like a mere band-aid solution to a larger problem. But Roy states that the band-aid solution for some means so much more when you are the one that is struggling right now. “It all comes down to power and decision-making,” she explains. “To some, $100 is nothing and it doesn’t really get to the root of the issue of poverty. But to those who are experiencing poverty, $100 means having the dignity and the choice and the right to make decisions for yourself which is something that poor people don’t have.” |
News Coverage Food Supplement 'Can't Wait' (The Star - Feb. 20, 2009) Medical Community Urges Health Food Supplement (CTV News - Feb. 19, 2009)
Social Advocacy Organizations 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction Association of Local Public Health Associations (alPHa) Ontario Coalition Against Poverty The Stop Community Food Centre Report Card on Health: 2009 Interactive Map - 2009
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