We Need an Accountable Federal Response to Food Insecurity in Canada

World Hunger Day seeks to end hunger for the one in twelve people in the world who experience chronic hunger today. The hunger they are talking about is associated with grinding poverty made worse by climate shocks and conflict-disrupted food systems.

We do not have that hunger crisis in Canada. We do, however, have a significant problem of household food insecurity in Canada, which our federal government is failing to address.

Food Insecurity in Canada Is Rapidly Worsening

The term “household food insecurity” refers to the inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints. Statistics Canada monitors food insecurity, including severe food insecurity, which captures food deprivation, and the prevalence has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2025, 9.8 million people, 1 in 4 Canadians, were living in a food-insecure household. In 2019, the number was 6.1 million people. 

These numbers matter because household food insecurity is a potent social determinant of health. People in food-insecure households are more likely to develop chronic mental and physical health problems, and they are less able to manage any chronic health problems that they have. This means that they are more likely to end up in hospitals and, once admitted, to stay longer. Food-insecure adults are also more likely to die prematurely. Household food insecurity not only compromises individuals’ health and well-being, but because of its link to health care use, it is also a significant drain on provincial health care budgets.  

Food insecurity is concentrated among low- and modest-income households. Other factors associated with increased probability of food insecurity include being Indigenous or Black, renting or having a mortgage rather than owning one’s home, being a one-parent female-led household, receiving social assistance, and involuntary job loss. The lowest rates of food insecurity are found among seniors, a finding that reflects the protection afforded to people over 65 years of age by our public pension system. Most food-insecure households are reliant on employment incomes. At its core, food insecurity in Canada is a problem of inadequate, insecure incomes.

The False Equivalency of Food Insecurity and the Affordability Crisis

The recent rise in household food insecurity coincides with a five-year period of weak per-capita growth, high inflation, volatile interest rates, and rising unemployment. Living standards have not improved since 2019, and consumer debt and housing costs strain households. Grocery prices have risen by 30.1% in the past five years. These trends affect all households and have contributed to a so-called affordability crisis, but “feeling the pinch” of food inflation is not food insecurity. Food-insecure households bear the burden of economic decline and disadvantage to the point that they are unable to acquire the food they need because of financial constraints. 

The Federal Government is seeking to make life more affordable, but its measures will not reduce household food insecurity. The Spring Economic Update illustrates this false equivalency well. The prime beneficiaries of the middle-class tax cut and the cancellation of the carbon tax are higher-income Canadians, not those at greatest risk of food insecurity. This is likely to also be true for the recently announced temporary removal of the federal gas tax.

The Carney government’s other initiatives include making the National School Food Program permanent, continuing the “Canada Strong Pass” to provide free admission to national parks and historic sites, more funding for Nutrition North Canada, and more money to the Local Food Infrastructure Fund to support food banks and other food charities. None of these initiatives is likely to yield palpable effects on either the prevalence or severity of household food insecurity.

The Groceries and Essentials Benefit is the only new measure introduced thus far that directly targets households with low and modest incomes. This refundable tax credit, formerly called the GST credit, will increase by 75% in 2026-27 and 25% over the following four years. The increases will not even offset low-income households’ loss of revenue from the Canada Carbon Rebate, which ended when the carbon tax was cancelled. Beyond the first year of the promised increase, a single adult receiving the maximum Groceries and Essentials Benefit will see their tax credit rise by less than $12 per month. Such a small increment is insufficient to reduce anyone’s risk of food insecurity. 

Canada Needs a National Food Security Strategy That Considers Income Inadequacy

In the absence of effective interventions, the problem of food insecurity in Canada continues to fester. The federal government’s commitment to establishing a National Food Security Strategy could be an opportunity to tackle household food insecurity, but descriptions of the initiative suggest that it will be focused on combatting rising food costs. To address food insecurity, this focus must be broadened to address problems of inadequate and insecure income.

The Public Health Agency of Canada recently completed an extensive systematic review of the existing evidence to determine what kinds of interventions “move the needle” on food insecurity in Canada. The review found strong evidence that federal and provincial policy interventions that modestly improve the incomes of lower-income households reduce their food insecurity. The review found little indication that food-based responses such as charitable food assistance and school food programs were effective in addressing this problem. These findings argue against continued investments in food assistance programs, while laying an important foundation for evidence-based income responses to food insecurity.

Canada Needs Measurable Food Insecurity Reduction Targets

There is an urgent need for more accountability in public policy responses to the problem of household food insecurity in Canada. Governments must not waste precious public resources on initiatives that have little chance of impact.

To ensure that future federal initiatives launched under the guise of addressing food insecurity truly achieve this goal, it is essential that the National Food Security Strategy include a commitment to measurable food insecurity reduction targets. We echo the calls of other advocates in proposing that the federal government commit to the elimination of severe food insecurity in Canada and a 50% reduction in the prevalence of household food insecurity by 2030. 

Having measurable goals will help to ensure that interventions introduced to reduce food insecurity are clearly targeted and evaluated against this outcome.