Why anti-poverty researchers bristle at holiday appeals for food bank donations

By The Canadian Press on November 27, 2022.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Canadian food insecurity researchers say holiday appeals for people to donate to their local food banks can be tough to swallow.

Lynn McIntyre, professor emeritus at the University of Calgary’s medical school, says donating to food banks doesn’t address the root causes of hunger.

McIntyre said in a recent interview that people go hungry because they can’t afford food, which indicates a need for systemic changes like higher wages and income support rates, or even a basic income program.

Josh Smee of the Newfoundland and Labrador group Food First says he hopes anyone donating to a food bank this year will also write to decision makers and ask them to raise the minimum wage and index income support levels to inflation.

He says food banks and private charities are filling in for the gaps in the social system.

Smee says food banks were introduced in the early 1980s as a temporary relief measure, adding that without increases to people’s incomes, they’ll likely never go away.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2022.

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