4 in 5 newcomers to Canada relying on food banks, Toronto report finds

As it has annually since the pandemic, the number of people visiting Toronto food banks for the first time soared again over the last year and newcomers to Canada are among the largest cohort of new users.

According to the Daily Bread and North York Harvest food bank’s Who’s Hungry Report 2024 – compiled using data from almost 1,400 users and 67 community sites, along with independent research and analysis – 154,700 new clients availed of their services between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024.

“This is an astonishing 222 per cent increase in new food bank clients compared to just two years ago,” the report reads, noting that the figures are an underestimate as they don’t include data from anonymous visits.

Overall, the facilities had a record-breaking 3.48 million visitors over the year, one million more than the previous and almost four times as many recorded before COVID-19.

The report notes it took 38 years to surpass the one-million visit mark, two years to pass the two-million and just a year to hit three million.

“Based on our projections and the worsening level of poverty in our communities, we expect to exceed four million visits by this time next year.”

Data also indicated that 4 in 5 of the new users are people who have called Canada home for five years or less and usage by refugee claimants also doubled to 12 per cent over the previous year, both of which, the report notes, align with permanent and temporary international migration fuelling 97.6 per cent of Canada’s population growth in 2023.

Last month, Food Banks Canada’s latest Hunger Count revealed that 32 per cent of clients to food banks across the country are people who’ve been in the country for less than 10 years.

The authors of the Toronto report contend that because Canada’s aging population relies on international migration to bolster its economy, workforce and population as a whole, “a rights-based approach” is needed to help newcomers adapt to life here and the accompanying cost-of-living stressors.

“Decades of underinvestment in public services, infrastructure, and social housing have created today’s cost-of-living challenges that disproportionately affect newcomers and other vulnerable populations and contribute to their higher rates of poverty and food insecurity — yet too often, these same newcomers are the first to be blamed for the cost-of-living crisis,” they wrote.

In the first year in which the food banks asked respondents about their student status, they learned that 42 per cent of new clients are students, more than half of whom (56 per cent) are new international students and the vast majority (93 per cent) are new to food banks.

They say the data “also reveals inequities, with both international and refugee students facing more severe food insecurity than Canadian students.”

For instance, surveying shows 83 per cent of international students and 85 per cent of students with refugee status reported not having enough food to eat compared to 71 per cent of Canadian students.

Within the last three months, Canadian-born students (33 per cent) were also less likely than their international (55 per cent) and refugee (40 per cent) counterparts to have missed a meal to pay for something else.

“This indicates that those with precarious status face more barriers to meeting their basic needs than those with citizenship or permanent status,” the report proposes.

Such an obstacle was recently erected for some international students in B.C. where the Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB) announced a new policy to exclude first-year international students from using the service.

As reported by The Langara Voice, the organization said the decision was made based on the federal government jacking the cost-of-living financial requirement for international study permit applicants from $10,000 to $20,635.

“After a year, these savings will likely have been used up, and food insecurity is a genuine possibility,” a GVFB spokesperson told the Voice.

A common barrier that often leads newcomers to the doors of a food bank is securing employment, particularly for international students.

“When we go to agencies to look for jobs, they say they want full-time, they don’t want students,” one respondent was quoted in the report.

Ottawa’s revised immigration caps and rules for international students may limit future growth, but the number of international students in Canada has already grown considerably in recent years. According to the ICEF, an international education sector marketing and networking firm, Canada granted more than a million active study permits in 2023, a 29 per cent increase over 2022 and 63 per cent since 2020.

In the Toronto surveys, 69 per cent of such students who hit employment roadblocks ended up relying on temporary or casual employment that ultimately left them earning less than the daily median income after rent and utilities were paid.

“What is missing,” the authors suggest “is a cohesive intergovernmental strategy to adequately fund postsecondary institutions while ensuring that international students are matched to appropriate programs, job prospects, housing options, and social support they need to thrive, while contributing to the economy and workforce here in Canada.”

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