Food insecurity on the rise in B.C. capital region

Preparations were underway at Our Place in downtown Victoria on Tuesday for a Thanksgiving lunch. The non-profit was expecting to serve 400 to 600 people, and some of those will be faces never seen before.

“It’s a real mix of people,” said Grant McKenzie, director of communications at Our Place. “We’re certainly seeing a lot of younger people, just over the age of 19, who are starting to be on the streets.”

There will also be families and seniors, all struggling under the rising cost of living.

“So we could see a lot more people that are housed but don’t have the opportunity to enjoy a nice turkey meal,” said McKenzie.

“In the last two years our numbers have more than doubled here at the food bank,” said Tyson Elder, operations manager and the Saanich Peninsula Lions Food Bank.

Last month alone, the Saanich Peninsula Food Bank registered 40 new households.

“That ranges from single people to families to seniors and everyone in between,” said Elder.

That could equal an estimated 70 to 100 new clients for the small operation and donations are down.

“It stands to reason, people are struggling so they have less to give,” said Dan Huang-Taylor, executive director of Food Banks BC.

That organization is currently compiling the number of people who had to turn to food banks in the province to get by this year.

Last year it saw a drastic jump.

“We are anticipating that there will be a further significant increase,” said Huang-Taylor.

Food inflation has been blamed on many factors: corporate greed, a labour shortage, general inflation and carbon taxes.

“Carbon taxes make the food that Canadians need to buy at the grocery store more expensive,” said Carson Binda, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

In B.C., we pay two provincial carbon taxes, increasing gas by 17 cents a litre. That means it costs more to ship food and those costs get passed along to the consumer.

“The province takes that revenue out of your pocket and into their general revenue pot,” said Binda.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the carbon tax hits two demographics the hardest: single parents and people living in rural communities.

“We’re seeing new people every day, from every demographic,” said Elder.

Unfortunately, the need at the Saanich Peninsula Food Bank is only expected to continue to increase while at the same time, new faces were expected to arrive at Our Place for turkey lunch.