The Politics of Money: An IFSD Podcast

Bonsoir, bienvenue, je suis Sahir Khan I'm the Executive Vice President of the Institute
of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa.

To open our event tonight, we welcome Martine Lagacé Associate Vice President, Research
Promotion Development, the University of Ottawa.

Thank you very Sahir.

Good evening everyone and welcome to the University of Ottawa.

begin, when we gather for an event like this, we are used to the University of Ottawa to
an Indigenous affirmation in support of reconciliation We pay homage to the Algonquin

traditional of this land.

We recognize the sacred of a time, uniting this territory, which remains unceded.

We tribute to all Indigenous people who live in Ottawa, whether from the region or
elsewhere in Canada.

We acknowledge the traditional knowledge keepers, both young and old, and we honour their
courageous leaders, past, present and future.

Tonight, you are here because you something essential.

The conviction that understanding a problem is already starting to transform it.

Food insecurity is not an abstract It's a family that makes impossible at end of the
month.

It's a student who jumps a meal.

This reality affects health, students' learning, and full participation of each and every
one in society.

Food insecurity doesn't show up in one place.

It shows up in health systems, in schools, in lost productivity.

in the quiet choices people make when they can't afford both rent and groceries.

The question of food today resonates well beyond the grocery store.

It affects what families can afford.

It affects the country's economic growth, security and sovereignty.

The immediate exist, and they come through government But behind the emergency, are deeper
questions about what food really

what it tells us, especially about our society and our choices a society, and what it
means for our collective Those are exactly the questions we're here to explore tonight.

Thanks to the work of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy and its partnership
with the Maple Leaf Centre for Food Security, we've brought together voices that

illuminate this issue from every angle, economic, social, local.

researchers, practitioners, people on the ground.

Each of them brings a different lens.

Together, they give us something rare, a complete picture.

The University of Ottawa, through Alex Trebek for Dialogue, is proud to co-host this event
tonight, and a partnership that takes on all its meaning.

Because that's exactly what this forum was created for, that is, to together different
voices

around the questions that really We are here, a few steps from the Parliament, so that
research can clarify the decisions that shape society.

Tonight is exactly what we will together.

Thank you.

Excellent reflection.

Excellent conference tonight.

Good evening.

Thank you, Martine.

Now we invite Merryn Maynard to help us.

Bonsoir tout le monde.

My name is Maren.

I work with the Maple Leaf Centre for Food Security.

The Maple Leaf Centre is a registered charity.

work nationally.

We were established in 2016 with the strong belief that the nonprofit sector should not be
working alone to address food insecurity and that there's a role to play for all parts of

society to address this issue together.

We collaborate with nonprofit sectors, with charitable organizations, with the private
sector and with governments with the very bold goal of reducing food insecurity by 50 % by

2030, not a goal that is going overly well at the moment.

uh We work to raise awareness of this pressing social issue.

We advocate for critical policy changes and we invest in scalable programs that help to
directly support people and households that are facing food insecurity in communities

across the country.

If you're in this room, you may know already that food insecurity has increased
dramatically in the last several years.

Between 2019 and 2021, around 6 million people experienced marginal, moderate, or severe
food insecurity across the country.

And as of 2024, that number had climbed to 10 million people.

With new data expected from Statistics Canada this week for 2025, we don't anticipate that
number to be getting any lower.

While food banks are often a measure of last resort for people experiencing food
insecurity, food bank visits across the country too have risen dramatically.

Food Banks Canada's hunger report in 2025 noted nearly 2.2 million visits in a single
month.

It took decades to reach 1 million and now it's taken six years to double that.

Food insecurity and food banks, it's just one way of looking at this issue that is growing
and growing.

There are other related statistics that tell us the systems and the structures we have in
place in Canada to support people who are falling on hard times are not working the way

that they should.

A fraction of people with disabilities are receiving support through major disability
benefits they are entitled to.

Rates of homelessness are rising, both in large urban centers and in smaller cities.

We have an emergence of a K-shaped economy where those with money to invest see their
wealth grow, while those without

can't seem to get ahead.

And more than that, over half of food insecure households in Canada have jobs, meaning
that employment is no longer effective against food insecurity.

A few years ago, we spoke to different groups of people across the country to better
understand their pathway into food insecurity and potential ways out.

One of the things we heard is that food is consistently the crumple zone in a car crash.

It's always the part of the budget that is the very first to go.

when there are other financial pressures at play.

What that actually looks like is parents going without food so that their children can eat
a healthy meal.

It looks like kids being unable to go to a birthday party because the family can't afford
a gift.

It means difficulties paying attention at work and at school.

And it means that one is unable to take a course or program to re-skill in a market where
the economy is constantly changing and jobs are disappearing.

Food has become a source of stress for many instead of a source of celebration and
connection.

Which brings us to why we're in this room today.

We know that the impacts of food insecurity are devastating for those who experience it,
but what is the full picture of what food insecurity costs us in Canada beyond strain on

the healthcare system?

What do we lose in lost potential, in lost productivity and beyond?

We approached the IFSD with this question and are supporting work alongside leading
researchers

to explore what it will take to measure the cost of food insecurity in Canada.

We believe assigning a number to this issue makes inaction on the parts of government and
other parts of society that much more unacceptable.

A process like this requires us to really examine the consequences of food insecurity at
an individual community and a national level, and this conversation today is a part of

that process.

So a big thank you to the IFSD for agreeing to engage in this difficult question with us.

and to Dr.

Tarasek, Natalie Spooner, Dr.

Notten and Rebekah Young for being a part of the conversation tonight.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Merryn.

So greetings from the IFSD.

We're pleased to be hosting this event today with the Maple Leaf Center for Food Security
and the University of Ottawa's Office for Research and Public Policy Outreach.

So I'm here for Kevin Page.

As many of you know, today was the economic and fiscal update.

Kevin, myself, and Dr.

Mustafa-Skara, our chief economist, were in the lockup, media lockup all day.

We had water and food, but nothing else, and we helped media kind of analyze the document.

uh

We're pleased that you're joining us and you're making this a part of your evening today.

It's an important issue.

We wish to recognize the practitioners, students and elected officials, Marty Carr, City
Councilor is here, because this is an important discussion.

And interestingly enough, I think we expected maybe this fiscal update to be about the
themes of government advance in the last budget.

Economic security, defense, uh long-term prosperity.

Well, actually it was about affordability.

And it was a bit of a surprise.

$60 billion, it's a bit of a windfall revenue from a more resilient economy with $55
billion of that kind of largely finding itself addressing measures of affordability.

And so this really, it hasn't become a back burner issue just because we had a hinge
moment facing unraveling of a global order.

It was just behind.

was a political hot button issue remains so.

So the first opportunity the government had after the federal budget to address

it they did in this update.

So I think as a discussion this is timely.

Canadians are feeling it.

So if you I have a brought the document as a prop but if you go to page 96 you'll see the
government has announced a national strategy on food security.

So this is an important time to be kind of feeding into this national dialogue ah between
now and the budget and I think this is where you know there's time for maximum impact.

So

I should say in addition, there was a separate initiative for Northern Food Security.

So a combination of measures to provide relief to households.

know, we had not, you know, the Prime Minister recently said that, you know, on average
incomes are outpacing inflation.

And our commentary on the journal says, on average that's true.

But our, you know, Mustafa, scary and our research have been finding if you're in the
first two quintiles, income quintiles, it's not the case.

right?

What we're finding now is that two-thirds of incomes are being taken up with uh food and
accommodation.

This is not sustainable.

And now we add an oil shock, which has driven up energy costs.

So a lot of pressure on households.

And the average doesn't tell you the story about the implications for specific segments of
the population.

Families with low incomes, lone parent families, indigenous people in black communities.

So this starts to scream that you need targeted measures, uh Measures that affect the
entire economy we find are generally, they're expensive and not always effective.

But this is a time when we,

start to think about if we identify the populations that need to be addressed and their
specific needs measures can be put together to address them.

So again there are specific communities that we we're we can identify specific in
quintiles and it gives an opportunity for the government to respond with very targeted

measures.

So to have this discussion and to have a vibrant discussion we need to have an incredibly
good moderator and it's with

great deal of pleasure that I'm gonna introduce our moderator tonight, Adrian Harewood.

We're gonna make him sit down first, because I'm gonna read um his bio, because it's
actually been really important, because if you wanna get someone to kind of tease out.

the important dimension of this debate, this discussion, you want a journalist to do it.

And so we're very fortunate that Adrian's agreed to do this.

So Adrian Harewood is a writer, broadcaster, associate professor of journalism at Carleton
University.

He's the host of the Current Affairs podcast, In Bed with the Elephant.

He was host of CBC's Ottawa Drive Home Show all day for three years and anchor of Ottawa
News at Six for 13 years.

He's hosted CBC's The Current, As It Happened, Sounds Like Canada, Metro Morning, The
House, Counterspin, Hot Type, and Power and Politics.

Hosted programs on PBS and Bravo.

He's interviewed, and just don't be nervous, he's interviewed Solomon Rushdie, Angela
Davis, Ken Dryden, David Sikizuki, Margaret MacMillan, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and

Naomi Klein.

He's won a Canadian Screen Actor Award for Best Local News Anchor and was nominated for
Best Interviewer.

His writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Ricochet, Toronto Star, Canadian
Dimension, the Halifax Chronicle Herald.

His academic interests include the history of black Canadian journalism, the US Civil
Rights Movement, and journalism pedagogy.

His academic work is published in Fact and Fiction, and he happens to be a childhood
friend of mine and neighbor.

So with that, please join me in welcoming Professor Adrian Harewood.

Thank you very much, Sahir.

One thing that Sahir did not mention is that he used to have a mean left foot.

That was a joke.

He was a left winger on our soccer team when we were 10 and 11 years old.

uh He had a very, very good left foot and we played soccer together.

So it's a delight to be here oh this evening.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce our main speaker.

this evening and I'm going to be having a, let's see if we can call it a fireside chat
with Dr.

Valerie Tarasuk, who is a professor emerita in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at
the University of Toronto.

Her major scholarly contributions have been the area of household food insecurity.

She's led several studies to elucidate the scope, nature and health implications

of this problem in Canada, assess the effectiveness of community responses, and determine
the effects of public policies and programs on food insecurity rates.

Since 2011, she has led PROOF, an interdisciplinary research program designed to identify
effective policy approaches and mobilize knowledge to reduce household food insecurity in

Canada.

Please give a very warm welcome to Dr.

Valerie Tarasuk.

It's great to meet you.

Well, thank you.

It's great to meet you.

I've been spending some time with you over last couple of days online and reading a lot of
your work, so it's a delight to meet you.

um I think I want to begin this way.

When did food insecurity become important to you?

Probably like 30 years ago, honestly, like a very long time ago, even longer than that.

I got into this issue as a master's student back in the 80s when food banks were just
starting.

And my master's thesis was an ethnographic study of what we called back then, soul support
mothers.

So, lone parent female led households, typically on welfare, in a very low income
neighbourhood in downtown Toronto called Regent Park.

And at a time when Daily Bread was just getting going.

that was my introduction to the problem.

And I...

have been, I guess, riveted to that problem ever since.

What is food insecurity?

How would you, in the kind of simplest terms, how would you define food insecurity?

Well, it's a bit daunting for me to answer that question given some of the other people in
this audience.

But the work that we do in proof is very fixated on the ways, the way in which food
insecurity is monitored and measured in Canada.

And so that's what I think we're talking about.

Typically, those are the numbers.

they're coming from.

So what are we measuring and what have we been measuring now for more than 20 years?

Inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints.

So that's how I would define food insecurity.

I know there are much broader definitions but that's the thing that we're tracking and
that's the thing that our group has been studying.

So why does food insecurity happen?

mean, most of us get food by buying it.

And people who can't are people who have inadequate and insecure incomes.

So it's, I mean, it's really that simple.

You know, we would all be fine if we had enough money in our purse to always be able to
access the food that we needed.

You know, we're a country that has an abundance of very good food.

How much is geography a factor when it comes to food insecurity?

Well, we have a...

a very, very terrible problem of food insecurity in the North, particularly Nunavut.

And is that about geography?

Yes.

um There's a lot to be said about the need to transport food to...

those areas and the cost of that transport.

today in this economic statement, we've seen another nod to the food retail subsidy
program, Nutrition North Canada, that was implemented several years ago to offset those

costs.

But all of that happens in the context of climate change and a degradation of the natural
environment and a lessening of people's abilities to acquire food in traditional ways.

Layered onto that, we've got the legacies of colonization.

Yes, we've got an issue in the North and we could talk about it through the lens of the
price of food in the North, but if we did that, we would be doing a disservice to the

people in the North, I think, because the problems are bigger and the solution so far has
absolutely not been um nutrition North, Canada, this food retail subsidy program.

But just to give you a sense of what I mean when I'm saying the problem is big, I recently
had cause to uh consolidate um

at Col-8, data on food insecurity in oh northern communities that were served by this
program, Nutrition North Canada.

And repeatedly I was finding survey data with prevalence rates of over 70%.

So most people in, none of it for example, most people, most children are living in
situations that are food insecure, severely so for the most part, and they have been at a

peer's for several years now.

Yeah.

I was really struck by Merryn's comment at the beginning.

in her introduction when she was talking with the fact that there's some 10 million people
in this country that are dealing with food insecurity on a daily basis, which is a

staggering number, and it's a shameful number as well.

This is a country of abundance.

is one of the most prosperous nations the world has ever seen.

How is it possible in this day age with all of the prosperity, all the money that exists
in this country, that 10 million people, really the equivalent of the GTA?

Right?

If you can imagine every single person in the GTA being food insecure, it's kind of, it's
hard to fathom, but that's the reality.

Can you first maybe paint a picture of what it means to be food insecure for the average
individual who's dealing with that reality?

What does that mean to be food insecure on a daily basis?

mean, Merryn did a very good job of that in her intro, right?

That, you know, it...

People who are unable to afford the food they need for themselves and their families are
unable to afford a whole bunch of things, right?

Food doesn't exist in isolation in terms of the household budget.

So if we scratch the surface, we'll find people that are struggling to afford uh
transport, medications if there's any charge associated with them, uh rent, mortgage

payments if they have a mortgage.

So it's a cascading of financial issues.

One thing to flag.

For simplicity's sake, we talk about food insecurity and we use just that word.

But what we've come to understand over the years of monitoring this problem is that it's
not one thing.

It's a continuum.

And you can be more or less food insecure.

And at its most extreme, we've got people who are severely food insecure.

Those are households that have reported enough

hardship for us to have reason to believe people are going without eating because of a
lack of money for food and Those people for sure are also struggling to pay their rent um

They probably are in arrears uh They're very likely not paying utility bills.

They if they had telecommunications bills, they've likely defaulted on them uh if they've
got any kind of a prescription medication which most of the adults in those households

will have because

that food insecurity is very, very tightly intertwined with poor health.

They will not be filling prescriptions as recommended.

I mean, it just goes on and on and on.

So what's the daily existence for someone who's severely food insecure?

Honestly, it's health.

It's a very, very stressful situation for someone to be in.

It's a terrible situation for us to have children being raised in.

You're under pressure all the time because you're just thinking about survival.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

um

Maybe you can kind of expand on this because you talked about the fact that there is a
health uh matter when it comes to food insecurity.

There's a cost.

There's a health cost to food insecurity.

Can you kind of elaborate on that?

What is the cost of food insecurity when it comes to health in this country?

There is a cost for the people who are food insecure in the sense that the condition
deteriorates health.

And especially someone who is living in a severely food insecure setting.

that is a very, very toxic condition to be sitting in, So we know from all kinds of data
that people in those circumstances, both adults and children, are more likely to develop

mental health problems.

They're more likely to have chronic health problems, to develop diabetes, for example.

um But on top of that, any health problem they've got, they're less able to manage.

So whether that's high blood pressure or arthritis, whether it's diabetes, whether it's
depression,

Doesn't matter what it is.

If you're in that pressure cooker, you can't manage it.

So how does that manifest in a country where we have a publicly funded healthcare system,
right?

I you can't go anywhere and get help for food insecurity, but if you've got a health
problem, we actually have a system set up for you.

So what?

um People who are living in food insecure situations are more likely to turn up in
emergency departments.

They're more likely to um see physicians.

They're more likely to be hospitalized.

When they are hospitalized, they're more likely to stay in the hospital longer, to be
readmitted.

It just goes on and cause for the system.

The real cause for the system.

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, a few years back, we did an analysis of food insecurity in adults
in Ontario using OHIP data, right?

So information about food insecurity from the national, at that time, the Canadian
Community Health Survey, linked to people's OHIP records and said, okay, if...

We know your food insecurity status now.

What did you look like through the lens of our healthcare system through that 12-month
window when we had measured food insecurity?

Well, what do you think?

The people who were in food insecure situations were burning up significantly more dollars
in health expenditures.

Across the board, emergency departments, hospitalizations, home care, like every category
of spending in healthcare was significantly higher.

But we also saw that continuum just scream off the page.

whereby someone, the more severe the food insecurity of the household was, the higher the
healthcare costs, the greater the probability of burning up those health dollars.

So much so that someone in a severely food insecure household, just over a 12 month
period, was consuming more than double the healthcare dollars of someone who was food

secure.

More than double.

severe food insecurity itself, as a problem in Canada, has doubled over the last five
years.

So...

What we've got going on now is Merryn alluded to these horrible statistics.

We've got more and more people down at the bottom.

And that's a condition that everything we've ever done looking at healthcare data would
say that these people are, if they're nowhere else, they'll be in our healthcare system.

And it's a loss of potential.

It's a loss of possibility.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And tragically, not only will they be there, but so will their children, right?

Children in those settings are more likely to develop mental health problems, they're more
likely to seek treatment for mental health reasons, like children.

And it's a lifelong, I think you talked about this, like it's a lifelong sentence for
children.

If they are food insecure when they're five or six years old, it sticks to them for their
entire life.

That's Even if things get better for that family, the...

Children in especially severely food insecure households are more likely to have developed
chronic health problems, chronic mental and physical health problems.

Those are problems they're going to be managing for the rest of their lives.

Depression, asthma, some will have diabetes.

um it just goes, you know, the cascading effects are absolutely lifelong.

Canadians, who are the Canadians who are most vulnerable to insecurity?

Those who are low income.

um

I mean, our primary predictor is inadequate insecure incomes.

Beyond that, what can we say?

In terms of demographics, for example.

Well, the problem is racialized.

We see much, much higher prevalence of food insecurity amongst households where
respondents identify as black or indigenous.

Those are the two groups that have two, three times the rate of food insecurity of people
in Canada who are white.

On top of that, we can see a very, very awful continuing pattern of single parent female
led households being at very, very high risk of food insecurity.

mean, the most recent data we've got, think something like 50 % were food insecure.

But crazy, right?

So race, ethnicity, gender in the sense of, you know,

child-carrying responsibilities, but other things that, I mean, the lack of assets, so
someone who's renting is obviously gonna be in worse shape than somebody who's owning

their home.

um What else?

just, it's, I mean, one of the things that is worrying for me about the focus on
affordability, I mean, on the one hand, it seems great that like today, you know, the

government has talked about affordability, they've recognized affordability as an issue.

And there's been a lot of talk about affordability over this last year.

One of the things that worries me about that is that we all are noticing the high price of
food or the high price of gas or whatever, right?

And there's a way in which we can dilute ourselves into thinking we're all in this
together.

But when you look at who's food insecure and who's severely food insecure in particular,
it's not all of us.

It's some of us.

And those some, they're very, very carefully chosen, right?

And that's the part.

that we're not talking enough about.

That, you know, there's a way in which when the going gets tough, you know, those who are
most impacted will be those who are socially and economically most disadvantaged.

It seems as if you're saying that food insecurity is embedded within this economic system
that we're living.

Is that a way to understand it?

Is it just a function of the system?

Is a system just operating the way it's supposed to?

operate and that there's some who will be food insecure and others who are food secure.

Well, maybe except that that

That way of thinking would say that it's a steady state, but kind of like the Christians
line that the poor will always be with us.

We'll always have people that are food insecure.

Well, if you the same system, they will be.

Well, OK, but we can go from 10 million to 6 million in a few years, right?

Or we can go from 3 million to 6 million in a few years.

This is something that can change and continues to change all the time.

So you think the system can be reformed.

absolutely.

that food insecurity in Canada

could be abolished within the system?

would say it could be certainly brought down to a very, very small number, absolutely.

How do you do it?

Well, let's look at our success story, because we do have one.

Who is the least likely to be food insecure in Canada?

Somebody over the age of 65.

Seniors are the most, the most, and this has been true for as long as we've been...

having population representative data on food insecurity.

From the very beginning, I remember doing studies back in the 90s, and what was the one
significant uh protective effect?

It was being reliant on old age pensions or being a senior.

Why?

Well, you know, since those 90s, a bunch of people have done work to try to figure this
out.

And what we've got going on for people over the age, from 65 onward, is effectively a
guaranteed annual income.

When you turn 65, no matter how you spent the last 65 years, you will be entitled to a
public pension.

That pension will be indexed to inflation.

It'll come with full pharma care.

You'll enjoy all kinds of benefits from the private sector, discounts on public transit,
discounts at shoppers, drug mart or Walmart or wherever.

They've all got seniors days.

But the money is huge and it's secure.

you're never going to have to worry about whether that check is going to come or that you
don't get cut off pensions in the way that you could get cut off welfare.

Because it's an income floor.

It's a floor, but the contrast with welfare.

People who are on social assistance in Canada are very, very likely to be food insecure
because those incomes are so low.

When someone turns 65, if they've been on welfare, for example, in Ontario, Ontario Works,
their income will more than double.

just by having that birthday.

That's all.

But think about the magnitude of the difference between being on social assistance as a
working-aged adult and being now, you know, the privileged, ancient, the senior.

um So there's the success story.

That's public policy at work, right?

Insulating um elderly people from uh food insecurity.

And so more people need to be insulated?

A whole lot of people, about 10 million, I think, need to be insulated.

Absolutely.

Who do we need to learn from when it comes to jurisdictions which are taking care of its
people?

Well, I mean...

This story of old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, that's a federal
story.

So I feel like the ones who most need to learn are our federal government, and the thing
that they can most learn from is their own program.

So it really is about people talking within, right?

I mean, we have...

But even internationally, like are there some countries that are doing a good job when it
comes to addressing the matter of food insecurity?

And can we learn from their example, from the model?

Yes, although it's a bit of a messy thing because...

Countries that we would imagine like the Scandinavian countries and Nordic countries,
right, with better social welfare programs, we would assume that they have lower rates of

food insecurity, but they're not even concerned about this issue, so they're not
monitoring it.

uh So we have data from the Gallup World Poll from FAO where there have been attempts to
measure food insecurity across 150 countries or something.

And for sure, we can see what we would expect to see, right, that there are uh Western
nations with very low rates of food

security based on those measures and they are the countries you would expect with more
progressive social policy but but

The countries that are doing the real deep dives into this problem are like Canada, the
United States.

mean, we're countries with a problem, right?

And we're measuring it because we feel like we need to monitor this and try to understand
it.

Whereas, you know, if we were sitting in Norway, we wouldn't have, you know, data like,
you know, we couldn't draw the kinds of graphs that we're able to draw here because, know,

you don't study something that isn't a concern for you.

The World Social Forum used to have this slogan, you another world is possible.

Right?

When you imagine that other world, right, that world without food insecurity in Canada,
within Canada, what does it look like to you?

It looks like bunch of healthy, productive people moving around.

um It looks like people, mean, children reaching their potential, um supports for people.

you know, I've talked about depression as a mental health condition that's very, very
prevalent, particularly amongst women in food insecure households.

You know, if we had a world without food insecurity, I feel like we'd be able to take care
of each other better.

So other sources...

of problems, whether they'd be mental or physical, we'd be able to manage them better
because they wouldn't be, we wouldn't be trying, or people wouldn't be forced to try to

manage them in the context of the pressure cooker environment.

What do you think needs to change in terms of our mentality to get to that world?

Well, I think we absolutely have to shed this notion that we're all in this together.

that this is, yes, these numbers have risen in the context of unprecedented inflation, but
the idea that we are all equally vulnerable and that, you know, the way to manage this is

through broad-based policies like the relief of the tax on gasoline or something, like we
have to give our heads a shake.

So that's one thing.

You know, we have a discrete group of Canadians who are extremely vulnerable and are being
pushed further and further down each day right now.

And we need to get clear that that's actually not me.

That's something specific and it's very predictable.

So there's that.

I also think we have to get our heads around just how serious this is.

Because there's something about the language of food and like, oh, you you miss the odd
meal.

It doesn't matter.

We've got food banks.

We've got, you know, it's not that big a deal.

But, you know, think back to what I said about our study of healthcare and, you know,
those severely food insecure adults burning up more than double.

Like, what were they doing to do that?

What did that look like for

them?

What was that like for everybody else, right?

You know, this is a serious problem and we have to be really careful to be clear that it's
a big problem, it's a serious problem.

It's absolutely a problem of public policy.

And that's where the buck needs to stop.

This isn't about nutrition literacy.

It never was and it for sure isn't now.

We've got to somehow name it what it is and recognize the seriousness of it.

I think we're going to end it there.

Dr.

Valar Jarisic, thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we're gonna move now to the second part of our conversation tonight.

We have a panel, and so just going to introduce our three panelists, and we're gonna be
speaking for about half an hour, 45 minutes, okay?

So our first panelist is Geranda Notten.

Geranda studies material wellbeing uh using material deprivation, income poverty, and food
insecurity indicators, and the effects of social policy on material wellbeing, including

government's poverty reduction strategies,

child benefits, and social safety nets.

Geranda teaches at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs here at the
University of Ottawa.

Her current work focuses on child material deprivation and the cost effectiveness of
social programs on child material deprivation.

She also works towards advancing the measurement of health inequalities using tax filer
data as part of CSDUL.

Please give a warm welcome to Geranda Notten.

Our next panelist hails from Pictou County, I learned, in Nova Scotia.

Rebekah Young works for the Scotia Bank.

She's an economist there.

She's the VP and head of inclusion and resilience economics.

She provides thought leadership on candidates' long-term growth prospects.

She tackles a wide range of themes, including fiscal sustainability, the energy
transition, housing affordability, immigration, and other evolving structural forces

shaping the horizon.

Previously, she held senior roles at the IMF, Finance Canada, and the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development.

She holds a BA in Chemical Engineering from a very good McGill University, an MSc in
Environmental Policy from the London School of Economics, and an MBA from INSED.

Welcome, Rebekah.

And Natalie Spooner uh is the CEO of the Ottawa Food Bank.

She also attended a good university, University of Toronto, although I prefer McGill.

um She is the interim CEO of the Ottawa Food Bank.

She spent more than 15 years with the organization, most recently serving as director of
programs and planning where she worked closely with staff, member agencies, and community

partners to strengthen programs and respond to evolving community needs.

Natalie brings a deep institutional knowledge of the Ottawa Food Bank, a collaborative
leadership approach, and a strong commitment to advancing the organization's mission of

supporting individuals and families experiencing food insecurity.

Please give a very warm welcome to Natalie Spooner.

So welcome to you all.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Rebekah, I thought I'd start with you.

In the last few years, we've heard a lot about the affordability crisis.

Professor Tarasek also kind of referenced it.

From your vantage point at Scotiabank, how are you seeing the affordability crisis
manifest itself?

Well, think a few messages that I've heard already earlier today is that Canadians do feel
like we're all in it together.

when we talk about affordability, a lot of Canadians are feeling very poorly right now.

Life satisfaction on metric, especially for younger Canadians, is down.

So it's a challenge for politicians, policymakers, because six in ten Canadians will say,
yes, they're facing affordability challenges.

but we're conflating affordability with acute vulnerability.

And so I think it's come out, um you know, already a number of times that when we talk
about affordability, that is very distinct from acute vulnerability that we're talking

about today.

And as a policymaker, when you're trying to design tools, um you know, you're spread too
thin if you're addressing broad-based affordability and you're missing the acute

vulnerability.

So you talk about the 10 million.

I talk about the 10 % in my world where pick any metric and you roughly get 10 % of
Canadian households in acute vulnerability, whether you're looking at food insecurity or

housing insecurity or, you know, health, mental health.

So it's really not hard.

We have all the data.

And it's also, you know, from a moral perspective as a wealthy country and particularly as
a country that has...

literally spent hundreds of billions in transfers over the last five years alone.

How could we still have this persistent 10 % that get left behind, you know, persistently?

So, overall, yes, I think all Canadians have experienced an affordability challenge over
the course of the pandemic.

We had an explosive population, a lot of demand, a lot of stimulus, pushed the prices up
of everyday stuff.

a range of factors behind food and energy housing costs that went up as a result.

um you know, lower income households spend more as a proportion of their income on that.

And I think it also comes out, you know, economists, so I'm a different type of economist,
I should say.

I try to dig beneath the headlines to see what my peers are missing in the aggregate and
see who's being left behind.

But I would say...

Unlike those other economists.

Yeah, not like those other economists.

But you'll hear economists say, but don't worry, wages have outpaced CPI, you know, and
they're almost keeping pace with food price.

And that's true.

If I drew you a chart, you'd have CPI over five years, you'd have housing, you'd have
food, and you'd have wage somewhere ticking up towards that higher end.

So for the average Canadian, I'd say I know there's a...

I was told there's a psychologist in the audience here.

Most Canadians think, I earned my wage, uh but somebody put that price on me.

So there's this broad-based psychological aspect that even if wages are keeping pace, but
what we heard earlier is that, you know, you know, the bottom income quintiles, their

wage, they are not earning market wage.

Their market wage isn't growing at that price that market wages are.

They are reliant on kind of this patchwork of government policies and, you know, the
hurdles they have to jump through.

So their wages are not growing.

Their wages are, you know, in real terms would be negative as they're seeing these food
prices.

So a lot of kind of packed in there, but um yeah, I think I'm hearing resonating with
earlier speakers.

Geranda when it comes to food insecurity, how does Canada compare to other G7 nations?

Okay, so I think Valerie already answered this question.

uh

to a certain degree, there is very little information that we have that's comparable
across countries.

And so the research that I'm familiar with is that Valerie published.

And that doesn't look just at G7 countries, but it looks at many countries.

And Canada is, compared to other richer countries, it's ah not doing as well, particularly
if you compare it to countries in Northern and Western Europe.

And that also links to, if you would look at other poverty statistics that are uh
comparable, uh Canada tends to be the one with the mediocre performer, the top of the

bottom half.

That's where they often end up when we are measuring poverty using income, for instance.

Can you elaborate on that?

What is that relationship between food insecurity and poverty?

Yeah, so that's a really good question.

So to me, uh

So I study food insecurity, study material deprivation, I study income poverty.

For me, these are all three, these are three symptoms of the larger problem, which is
you're having low levels of material well-being.

And so the difference here is that I find in Canada, when we're talking, thinking about
poverty, we focus too much on income.

And also when we're thinking about policy levers, yes, we're focusing too much on income
as well.

Why is that a problem?

Well, I don't know, I'm an economist just like you and I've You're a different kind of
economist.

I've noticed that since I came to Canada 18 years ago that, you know, economists have the
ear of policymakers quite a bit and a lot of Canadian economists when they think of

poverty, they think of income.

But what they're missing is that income is just a resource and it's only one financial
input.

So an income in Vancouver is different from an income in Halifax or New Glasgow or Wawa.

But also, next to income, you're having other financial resources.

it could be not my microphone.

yes.

No, it's not.

Thank you.

next to uh so yes, so you're having differences in the cost of living.

But the other aspect that you have is income is one resource and it's an important
financial resource for people.

But there are other financial resources that you can access.

You might have savings on the one hand, or you might have benefits through your employer,
which helps you save out of pocket spending.

Right.

em And on the other hand, on the flip side, you might be having debts.

which means that if you're paying interest rates, that means you can't use that money to
spend on the things that you need today.

And so when we're measuring poverty by income, we're missing sort of that financial
dimension.

But what we're also missing is the fact that households differ in so many ways.

And I loved you were talking about averages and looking below those averages because the
ways in which families differ in terms of their needs and their circumstances

They are so much more complicated than any income measure can take account of.

Also, the very elaborate market basket measure, which is our official poverty measure in
Canada, they're missing a lot of things because in addition to having differences in

financial resources, you may have access to benefits from work, someone else may not.

That leaves you with no dental plan and no pharma care.

Or on the other hand, you might have extra costs associated with a specific need.

It could be a disability, it could be an allergy, or you just had to move and now you had
to suck up that higher rent.

So oh it's those kind of things that mean that we really have to be cautious on the
measurement side, but also on policy levers.

So I wanted to ask you, what would be a better way then of capturing the reality?

Well, one of the reasons I've been working with Valerie and

and why I'm working on material deprivation is that we're measuring low material
well-being by looking at outcomes, adverse material outcomes.

So that's what food insecurity does.

You had to skip a meal because you didn't have the money, or you had to em use, you know,
not the most nutritious food, but at least to get tummies filled, right?

And so, but the reason you're doing that is not because you're on a diet, no, it's because
you don't have the money for that.

And so some of the other information that I study in my research is what we call material
deprivation, where we're looking at a broader range of necessities that people cannot

afford because they're not having the money for it.

Natalie, you and your team, you are on the front lines uh each and every day.

You see, really, a lot of the casualties of this system.

people come to you when they are in need, people come to you when they are often
desperate.

Can you maybe just paint a picture to us as to how you've seen?

kind of food insecurity crisis evolve over the last couple of years when it comes to your
work at the food bank?

Yeah, I think it's been mentioned here a few times and I think it's been related to that
growth in a graph and so our numbers are significantly higher than we've ever seen.

In the last year alone, Ottawa saw 855,000 visits.

855,000?

855,000 visits compared to 2019, that's like a 101 % growth.

And how many people would that represent?

855 like a ballpark.

We're around 50,000 people in a month to turn a credit food bank in Ottawa specifically.

So that's like one of four households that need to rely on a food bank in Ottawa.

The reason why that is so scary is that we're also seeing that affect children as well.

So we're seeing that over 30, 35 percent are relying on food banks are children as well.

But we're actually really seeing is that when we're seeing those numbers grow, we're
almost seeing this almost immunity to seeing these numbers grow.

They become.

unreal or unrelatable, they just become another number.

So what does 500,000, a million, 10 million, what is enough?

Or when do we say that we can't meet that need anymore?

And I think at food banks in Ottawa, specifically what we're seeing in the past year or
two is that we've actually put our hands up and said, we can't do anymore.

We can't continue to meet this need.

And it's almost been a failure in our own system that we felt almost accountable to.

Because even though more and more people need to rely on food banks, there's only so much
resources we can provide with our response.

And when we see those numbers reading up to 588,000 in the past year, can we get up to
600,000?

We don't know because we don't even know if we can provide enough support to reach
600,000.

The risk for us that means is that when people do access a food bank, if they need to come
back for another service or they can't get access to our services because we don't have

enough resources or appointments, it becomes invisible again.

So we can't track those people that don't get access to food banks.

We can't see what that need looks like.

And like our colleagues have said today, the severity is key.

So when we get to a point where we can't track anymore because you can't provide any more
services, how do we know that more and more people are in food insecure?

Or how do we track the severity of who needs access to food bank ongoingly?

And the challenge with that is when we look at that support in the network, there's only
so much food banks can do.

And so we do have to call on other supports and other systems to help address that.

I want to get a sense as to how this is stretching you at the food bank.

Because clearly the demand is mounting, the demand is rising, which means that you have to
provide people, you have to supply people with the resources, with the food they need.

So what kind of pressure are you under at the food bank when it comes to supplying people
on a daily, on a weekly, on a monthly basis?

The pressures are very, very real and they're very tangible on a day-to-day basis.

Paint a picture for us.

Even recently, the media people are talking about the cost of fuel.

So that's a balance that we have to have at a food bank level is how do we fuel our trucks
to make sure that we can distribute 7.9 million pounds of food.

But also, when we talk about the cost of food as well, as food banks continue to meet that
need, we have to continue to fundraise to meet that need.

But it's not that we're fundraising that needs to put out more food.

It's just to keep up with the cost that we have to face.

So when we look at the amount of food that we put out, say, 10 years ago, we were looking
at 7.9 million pounds of food.

today we're still looking at 7.9 million pounds of food across the city of Ottawa but it
just means that it's costing us more for that food.

What food banks have done in Ottawa is that we've been prioritizing what kind of foods we
purchase because we do have an accountability as a food bank to look more into food and

security and less on into hunger which means we get to have a conversation of do we buy
more milk?

Do we buy more beef?

Do we invest in um in culturally appropriate foods?

Absolutely we do.

because that's where we can have a contribution to providing healthy foods when we know
that this is not a decision people can make when they're choosing the grocery store when

you don't have the budget.

Given that food is a commodity, this is the challenge that you have to deal with.

You know, when a person is food insecure, as Dr.

Tarasek said earlier, they're under stress.

It's a lot of mental pressure on that individual.

I'm wondering, you know, when it comes to the kind of work that you're doing on a daily
basis,

What are you seeing from your clients?

Are you seeing changes in their stress levels?

Have you seen that over the last couple of years?

And maybe just give us some examples.

Yeah, think Valerie nailed it when she said it's very stressful, but it's also very
isolating.

Being food insecure is highly stigmatized.

Even though people will talk about it more openly, people will relate to it from their
lens.

But to be really food insecure, be dealing with severe food insecurity.

It's not the same boat.

That was very, very clear.

have to be very clear that what you're dealing with in terms of affordable food when you
have access to income versus someone who doesn't get to make those choices or is unable to

make those choices is completely different.

And so the journey of poverty, the journey of food and security is taxing.

It's heavy.

It's tough.

And it has an impact on your overall health because you're constantly balancing the funds
that you don't have to budget your way of poverty in a way that's impossible.

And the way that we're seeing that is that if you look at some of the income rates, if you
look at Ontario Work income rates, when we looked at it, it showed that 48 % of your

budget will go on food, 67 % of your budget will go on housing and rental.

Those percentages don't match up to begin with for all the economists in the room.

That doesn't make 100 % for me.

And so when you're constantly trying to budget forward, it doesn't make sense that you
cannot get ahead.

15 years ago on food banking, the conversation around

food insecurity was a little bit of an emergency support to help you get ahead, to help
you deal with the emergency.

It's not an emergency, it's chronic and it's systemic.

So when we have people struggling with this, it's a long-term struggle that they're
dealing with and it's stressful and it's isolating for them.

Drenda, I think you kind of alluded to this earlier, but can you just elaborate on the
social impacts of food insecurity on the society?

Yeah, okay, let me think how to turn this a little bit around.

So when we're measuring food insecurity, we're measuring adverse material impacts.

uh But the impacts are way broader, and that's what some of the people who have spoken
already said.

So among the research that I do is I look, take a broader lens that goes beyond food
insecurity and it looks at material deprivation.

And when we're measuring that, we're looking at things such as

Are you able to keep your home, can you afford to keep your home at a comfortable
temperature?

Can you afford regular dental care, including cleanings and fillings?

Or can you afford to give a small gift to family or friends once a year?

Those are the kind of things.

And so these are sort of the consequences of not having enough financial resources.

They're social as well.

They're social in the sense that you can't give a gift to people, or it means that you
don't have money.

to participate in ceremonies or occasions that are important for your ethnic group or
cultural group, right?

And so those are all aspects that are important of being part of society, being included
in society.

so that's, when you're saying that poverty is very isolating, these are some examples of
why it is isolating.

Yeah.

So here earlier was talking about the announcement that the government made, I think,
today.

It's the new national.

food security strategy and it just says here the strategy will make it easier for
Canadians to access affordable and nutritious food and build Canada's resilience and

capacity to meet domestic needs.

The the spring economic update is announcing, proposes to provide 24 million dollars over
four years and nine million dollars per year ongoing to enable Health Canada to expand

economic analysis capacity and to optimize the review processes for, sorry that was
something else, my apologies.

um

Yeah, let me just kind of move over here.

Let's talk about the Canada groceries and essentials benefit, right?

In addition to the of the announcement the government is making today.

Do you think that groceries and essentials benefit Rebekah is substantive?

Is it something that will actually make a difference in the lives of Canadians?

At one point, I want to say something on the national food strategy.

But first, Rebekah, do your thing.

oh Okay, no, well I think, I mean, I think it's a promising start and I think today in the
update they removed the GST, which is thankful.

I think people, you know, it was confusing enough and I think we can eventually remove the
grocery and uh essentials because I think it is a transfer.

We have, you know, the federal government has a bucket of transfers.

A whole lot of it goes to seniors.

A lot of it goes to provinces.

You know, some of it goes to children.

This is a new transfer that is income tested to low to uh modest income households.

So it is targeted and it has no strings attached other than income.

Now it doesn't get at the complexities of, you income, but it is a tool.

Now they failed their first test.

You you mentioned the em temporary suspension of the fuel tax, federal fuel tax last week.

We actually published ahead and said, don't do that.

em You know, the people that are going to be hurt the most.

are the ones you've got a vehicle already use this GST to do even more.

Yes, we know you just increased it, but we have, you know, we even, you know, this war now
in Iran is going to lead to a food crisis after the energy crisis that we're feeling now.

So we said, get ahead of it.

And we even went further and said, you know, even start thinking about instead of, you
know, it's growing at 25 % after this one time boost.

but think about indexing it to food price or some price that rises faster than headline
inflation because the food insecure houses would benefit from that.

So I think that tool is helpful.

um I would just draw an analogy.

And so I've done work in the past on housing affordability and see some parallels and just
how important it is to have that hard data of what the social costs are.

You know, and I often use the data that is coming out of academic researchers and from
our, you know, different data agencies.

And back in 2023, I did a very, very, very simple calculation that many economists would
just laugh at.

um I looked at, again, I looked at income, but I looked at low-income households.

I looked at market rents across the country.

and I show this to policy makers and at that time they were really proud because they had
just cut a $500 check as a housing benefit one off and they said, you know, there we've

taken care of housing affordability and I said, that doesn't even cover a one month
shortfall for market rent for, you know, the bottom two quintiles of renters in this

country and their jaws dropped.

Like they had not thought about it in that sense and so I think, you know, I think

we're getting there and I'll turn over to the food strategy because I think we're still
far behind.

We're now seeing traction and so in my analysis I said you got to think about community
housing just even start doubling the stock of housing and this was a couple of years ago

and you know policy is slow to get there but I think we haven't had like to be honest a
really aha moment because there's so many strategies the government's working on and

strategy is so far from like material.

improvements or changes.

Geranda you wanted to talk about the National Food Security Strategy.

I'm going to keep it short.

Sure.

So I only read what you read.

Yeah.

And I only read what you read.

we just got it.

And we just got it, right?

Yeah.

So you're talking about $9 billion for research, $25 billion for agri-food processes.

This is all supply side.

This is food production.

This is not going to do anything with the affordability.

uh

for families, so it's not working on giving more financial resources to families.

It's not gonna help them reduce their cost of, their out of pocket cost to spend basic
necessities.

So that's a lot of money, but it's not gonna solve the problem that we're talking about So
if you were in charge of the National Food Security Strategy, dear.

What would you do?

I would bring in a bunch of other ministries.

ESDC for instance, Health Canada.

um

I'm sure I'm forgetting a whole whack of them, but because you're putting me on the spot
now.

you know, so yes, we can talk about supply, but the big issue that valid, you know, that
we're noticing with food insecurity, it's not so much that prices are high or that we're

having trouble with supply.

It's that we don't have the resources to buy the food and that there is a substantive
group of Canadians, more than 10%.

that are having this issue and are having this issue already for a long time.

I'm gonna put you on the spot right now, Rebekah, because there are some people who doing
very well in this economy.

The banks are doing very well.

Your employer, Scotiabank, right?

The six big banks in the first quarter, I think made what, $19 billion?

Isn't part of the problem when it comes to food security, the fact that some people in
some organizations, some institutions have too much money and are not sharing that money

with the rest of us?

Well, so, you know, one, my kind of two-part message to government, if I had a government
audience right now, is two-part.

And the best thing that they can do for the average Canadian, um for that average Canadian
that is feeling affordability is hurting and they feel they've earned their wage, and so

why now with prices going up, they are unhappy?

What, you know, my message is the best thing you can do for the average Canadian is lift
productivity so that...

that corporations do earn more profits, sustainable profit, because they're more
productive and they pay higher wages.

And we know in economics that that is how you lift welfare over the medium term.

Governments have more revenue.

So they need to do that.

How about banks paying more taxes?

em You know, my second message really is about that acute affordability and that when they
do have these massive transfers to households, um they are not targeted enough that we

have this acute affordability.

And then the other thing too is um providing, you know, certainly in my role in the
economic shop that we do have a privileged position from, um you know, when we do

put something out there, invited, we provide the forecast for em what budgets are
predicated on.

em When finance ministers are thinking about what to do to stimulate the economy, to
address affordability, they will often consult the business community, they will consult

banks.

And so, you know, I certainly take that personally as a very serious role.

And so when they do ask me, I do, I was saying to somebody I was in budget lockup with,
you know, I...

I met the finance authority that was covering social and I said you need to think about
food security more.

So, you know, personally I take that, you know, I do take that very responsibly but I
think overall um I do think we need to, as a country um in economic terms, our growth

outlook is very poor if we don't get greater investment.

And I don't think that sunk in for many Canadians of the track that we are on in terms of
broad-based welfare.

So, you know, I say if Canadians didn't feel good in 2023, 2024, if we don't shift our
trajectory of growth and business investment, and if we do try to cut off the tall

poppies, I think in the long run, you know, as a society, we're not going to be able to
afford the kind of the social programs that we have.

So I think we need to...

find a way that we are growing and redistributing.

um I don't think that you can have one or the other, um you know, if you don't have an
equitable society that you do have non-linear em disruptions that, you know, we're seeing

this in other countries already, but you know, I think the policies I see on the growth
side, I think are positive if we can get there, but I don't think that they have the

bandwidth right now to think about the...

the social capital side.

So I think it's important the discussions we're having here and that they get in front of
policymakers because we're thinking a lot about the capital equipment, machinery,

intellectual property now with this new government.

We need to see people as our potential as well.

Natalie, given how difficult the kind of global financial outlook is, um

How do you go about planning for the future at a place like the Ottawa Food Bank?

Well, firstly, we have to look at these high numbers.

How do we respond to that?

So a lot of it is going to be about planning for that stability.

And if we can get to that stability, how do we plan our purchasing or our funding on that?

Following that, I think what food banks are doing is that we are advocating much more than
we've ever done before.

Historically, food banks have been

a recipient of support and so we've been very gentle in the good night of accepting any
support that would come our way.

But what we're seeing now is traction on spotlighting food and security and so we are
being able to advocate much more louder and much more stronger about what supports will

actually affect people turning up at our doorstep.

And we're doing that at three different levels right now.

So we get to do it at the municipal level.

I do know we have Marnie Kerr in the room today, but we do have champions at municipal
level who'll be able to look at strategies at the municipal level to talk about what does

that look like.

at our doorstep and that is around the costing of transport, the cost of food locally, the
cost of housing, how do we address that?

We also get to do that at the provincial level as well.

Well, not all levers, not one single lever is gonna address this.

Income is one of the areas where we know people, if they have access to more income, it
will reduce their need to turn up on our doorstep, that's a reality.

And we're seeing that from firsthand accounts on our distribution.

So we do get to talk about provincial, but we are talking about what does a proven Ontario
works look like?

What does indexing it, what does improving Ontario disability look like?

And then we get to have that conversation.

I know it's a grocery tax benefit right now, but at the federal level there are partners
we get to amplify for.

If you are able to increase the amount of food have, sorry, the amount of funds people
have, it will then benefit Trickele all the way through.

So those cumulative pieces will allow us to be able to address the current need and try
and reduce that from getting any worse.

Overall, think from a food bank lens, our priorities are going to be what does our
commitment to providing healthy food look like, which means we have to make very tough

decisions on we can't massive amount of foods.

We have to get to a limit of what we can actually buy.

But we're being very transparent on what our capacity is.

And we're hoping, or we plan, that by being very clear on what our limits are, well then
we get those extra supports from other levels to be able to meet us halfway.

know, food bank thought leaders for years have been talking about

the fact that they want to abolish themselves, they want to abolish food banks.

They make the point that the very existence of food banks is an indictment of the society.

ah these things should not exist.

How do we get to that place?

What's the kind of policy basket?

What are the things that need to transpire for us to get to a point where food banks would
no longer be necessary in this society?

I think the first thing to do is stay out loud, and all food banks, I'm sure, would say
this, that food banks are not the solution to food insecurity.

I'm going to say it again because it's important.

Food banks are not the solution to food insecurity.

If you have policy advocates thinking that food banks can respond to this ongoingly, we're
not going to get anywhere.

So we're looking for policy change.

We are looking at policy change on those three different levels specifically.

Every level of government has a role to play.

Every level of government has a lever that they can pull.

And some of those have already been named in terms of whether it's to do with basic income
supports or whether it's access to affordable transit.

affordable housing.

There's so many opportunities to increase the amount of funds folks can have in their
pocket, especially those who are dealing with severe food insecurity.

That's the key piece here.

So if we're able to address those who are actually struggling, if we can reach those and
be able to provide relief for them, it'll be success in food banking.

We're going to wrap up in a moment.

But Rebekah earlier was talking about the importance of increasing productivity in this
economy, that she sees that as being the way out.

And that if we don't address that kind of fundamental contradiction within system, we're
not going to achieve as much as we could.

You've talked about the importance of inclusive economic development.

What does inclusive economic development look like to you?

Well, it means that everyone, particularly those with lower levels of material well-being,
are having opportunities to participate in that economy and to benefit from that.

Yeah.

So that would sort of be the definition, yeah.

Can you kind of elaborate a little bit more on that?

So yes, Canada has a huge productivity problem.

But a big factor of increasing productivity is people, right?

They're going to get more productive.

And so we're seeing a lot of investments in sort of the capital sides of the economy.

But we are forgetting, as you were mentioning, the human capital, the people themselves.

Just to give you a...

you know, an example that might be a little bit out of the blue, there is about 9 million
Canadians that don't have access to a dental plan, which means that they cannot spend, you

know, they often forego dental care, and the consequence of that is they will only get
dental care when the issue is so bad that they need to go to get emergency hospital

services, right?

But in the meanwhile, they're having pain, discomfort, disability.

they might be losing work opportunities, they might be having more sick days.

There goes your product, your labor productivity, right?

And so then you have a program like the Canadian Dental Care Program, which costs about
three billion in the most recent uh fiscal year, of which two billion went to seniors.

And then my research is finding that it reduces dental care deprivation rates by about
five to seven percentage points, which is about

half of the deprivation that seniors are experiencing, and we already know that they're
experiencing way less issues than the working age population.

So what you're having is, yes, you're spending a few billion dollars, but at the same
time, there's also going to be productivity gains as well.

Now, whether that's how much of a dollar for productivity gain, that's going to be hard to
see, but we're gonna look at that in the next few days as well with our workshop.

Rebekah, did you wanna respond to that?

quickly before it ends?

no, I'll just add two things.

And so one thing is that I think we need, when I think about inclusive, inclusivity,
think, you know, anybody who wants a job should be able to get a job in the country.

And so right now there are about nine, 10 million Canadians that would self-declare they
have a disability.

About one million would say they could work if there were accommodations in the workplace.

I don't think we're doing enough to think about inclusive labour forces so that those that

can and want to work can earn a wage.

But that's a pretty narrow lens and GDP is a very, very narrow lens to measure output and
measure productivity because we're just looking at the adults that could work and are they

working and we'll measure how many aren't working and how much could we increase GDP if we
could get there.

I think a broader lens looks at things like what happens with potential of a five-year-old
when...

you know, they have uh a decade of food insecurity and they hit the working age with less
potential because of that.

m traditional economics doesn't measure that and that's where I think the work that my
colleagues here are doing that need to expand that way of thinking about potential and how

early um you either start building it or you start losing it and how what we lose as a
country when we don't address it early on.

I think just add to that as well, I do agree that everyone wants a job, can get a job, but
that job needs to have a living wage attached to it and not a minimum wage.

That's where we're seeing a big gap in that even if you are employed, we're still seeing
folks need to rely on a food bank because it's not keeping up with the costs.

So would say pushing more for that living wage and a way for minimum wage would be
helpful.

Yeah.

We're pressing against the end of this session.

Do we have time for questions?

We do.

Okay, super.

Well, first of all,

Round of applause for our fine panel.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is a very young crowd, so you folks probably don't remember Oprah.

I'm going to try and do this Oprah style.

So if you have a question or a comment, I'm going to come to you.

Anyone has a question?

Comment?

Yes.

Thank you everybody who was on the organizing committee tonight.

This has been a very informative discussion.

My name is Aileen.

I work down the street at the Ottawa Mission, which is Ottawa's oldest and largest
homelessness shelter.

So before the pandemic, the Mission, through its shelter program and its community food
program, served about 495,000 meals.

Anybody from the community could come in.

They were welcome.

They sat at a table.

They were served.

In other words, it was just like what you would get in your own home.

Since the pandemic, we've implemented a food truck program, which has grown from one
truck, five stops, 500 meals a week, to now two trucks, 41 stops, and 11,500 meals a week.

So what does that mean in practical terms?

It means that for the past three years, a downtown homeless shelter for food insecurity is
not our main job, but now it has become our main job in addition to addressing

homelessness, now has served over a million meals across the city of Ottawa for the past
three years.

The first year it was just over a million, the second year was over 1.1, and last year it
was over 1.2 million meals.

So my question is bluntly,

How do we, different levels of government to stop punting this issue to other levels of
government saying, it's not my responsibility, it's not my problem?

And secondly, how do we get people who don't think that either food insecurity or the very
closely correlated issue of homelessness will never happen again?

Because I can tell you, people who are employed, people who did all the right things,

who put away money, who are seniors, who are on a pension, they are now coming to our food
truck.

So those are two questions that I have.

Thank you.

Maybe I'd ask Durand, do you want to address that?

Yes, but I'm also going to be brief because I'm sure there's going to, you know, there
might be more questions.

dear, yes.

um

So yes, productivity is helpful because it helps us increase our resources and then we can
use those resources to improve programs to deal with all kinds of coverage gaps.

So yes, that's one part of that.

The other part is, and that's where, as a European, a Western European person, I look at
the amount of money of the GDP that comes into the public purse and is then spent on all

kinds of things.

And I compare that to my country in the Netherlands or in some of the other countries.

You're talking about private planes for premiers?

Sorry?

You're talking about private planes, $20 million planes for premiers?

But I was actually thinking more about social spending, so let's keep the planes out.

But m so yes, can do more if we're growing.

We can redistribute more through some of that social spending.

But you can never achieve what

you know, what Nordic countries or Western European countries can achieve when you can't
become Scandinavia on a Canadian budget.

It's just not possible.

Then one more thing that I want to add, yes, we've been seeing, you know, economic growth
over the past 30 years, but a lot of those benefits from growth and that productivity,

that went to the top 1%, right?

That didn't go to a lot of other people and certainly not to people at the bottom.

So I think, you know, there is a,

you know, a broader spectrum outside of social policy, thinking about competition policy,
thinking about monetary policy, that all influences those effects.

How much more would Canada need to invest to become Scandinavia?

I think about 10, 15 percentage points of GDP, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Another question?

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you to the IFST for organizing this and to the panelists.

uh My name is Ashley Delay.

um My job title is the Senior Policy Coordinator at the Assembly of First Nations,
specifically in social development.

So I've come here tonight to listen to everybody speak on this issue, and it's been very
informative.

And I wanted to actually speak to a question that Adrienne asked uh about whether
geography matters.

And this is something that we deal with all the time in our work at the AFN.

Geography does matter.

um we have had, um the IFSD has helped us quite a bit in tackling some of these issues and
making recommendations for how to close the fiscal gap for how geography plays into

affordability.

And I really am bringing together a couple of different points that.

I've heard over the course of this conversation about how geography matters, how we
measure low income market basket and the accessibility of goods and material deprivation

because this is something that figures into all of the context in which many, not all, but
many First Nations communities and people live in and accessing services.

So sometimes we think about deprivation as an income-based issue, but I really appreciated
the things you, that I'm sorry I've forgotten your name in the moment, but that you have

said about material deprivation and how that affects ah especially parents and children.

Because this is something we see all the time and it is a major driver of a couple of
things.

uh Over-representation of First Nations children in child and family services and the

the explosion in Jordan's principal request.

Jordan's principal is a service that pays for First Nations to be able to access services
ah ideally for the children who need them.

uh And one of the things that we have a very difficult time overcoming is the idea that
many people have, and including many government ah bureaucrats, that Jordan's principal is

an income.

uh service, that it provides income.

It provides funding to, uh because that's the only problem.

And often income is not the problem, it's the fact that the service doesn't exist.

So the cost of bringing that service, and you're usually bringing the child to that
service, plus their caregiver, ends up becoming a fairly extensive and expensive mission.

um

Plus many of these things are time sensitive.

And this is something we continually run across.

And this is like hearts and minds kinds of issues.

getting the people who pick up the phone at Jordan's principal and getting to that, yes,
we'll fund this issue or we'll fund this request often becomes a major challenge.

And we hear about totally legitimate requests being denied because of paperwork or
something like this.

But ultimately,

It's because of the way that the bean counters count those requests and the money that
goes into those requests.

I don't, if there's a question in my comments, I'm not sure what it is other than we don't
have a solution for this either.

It's just like a wicked problem that we can't seem to really overcome.

And so I just wanted to thank you for that conversation.

And if you have any reflections, I'd be all ears.

Thank you.

Final comments?

Rebekah, do you want to try to tackle that comment or?

And maybe I'll address also, you know, earlier comments, which is that I think, you know,
part of what I'm hearing and, you know, observing is the need to break down silos, that

food insecurity isn't an issue in isolation, mental health isn't an issue.

There's just so many intersecting.

areas and almost compounding and so once you have one challenge, a health challenge or you
know whatever it is, it compounds or you know they are interrelated.

I feel and I think that some of the work that I've been doing with colleagues in Toronto
Community Housing is around not seeing the housing as a shelter, a know four walls and a

roof over your head, but as a system and all the social supports, the wraparound supports,
acknowledging that

you need the healthcare and the mental healthcare services and the food security if that
housing situation is going to be sustainable for that individual.

think, seeing it, it's a complex problem when you start thinking it in those terms, but I
think that's the only way that serves the individuals in these situations.

Natalie, final word to you.

um Just to add to that point, when you're looking at providing supports, community-based
supports is important.

accessibility to support is important.

And in your comment when you talked about it's not about the access to income, it's about
the supports themselves.

We know the journey of poverty is long and hard.

We know people have to access different resources in so many different places that you
spend your day trying to figure out how you're gonna make ends meet.

And so we're looking at supports for a food banking lens.

Food banks are looking a little bit beyond food and looking more towards what does systems
navigation look like?

What does wraparound supports look like?

Are the supports you need close to you or do you have to travel the item, making it much
harder or worse for you to have that journey?

And when we talked about those stress levels, when you're looking at providing support,
the way in which to reduce those stress levels is to make those supports accessible.

And you'll see food banking is a lot more that community-based support work to go beyond
addressing hunger into working with food and security.

A big thank you to Natalie Spooner, Rebekah Young, and Geranda Notten Thank you.

I'm going turn it over to Sahir.

I think if the federal government really wants to target a national food insecurity
strategy, I would start with this panel and the discussants and our moderator today.

So I want to thank them all for doing this.

For those in the room, I also want to point out the screens in the back.

This is research supported by the Maple Leaf Center.

Graduate students who have done research on food insecurity.

I also want to mention that these events don't happen by accident.

They happen with our partners.

at Maple Leaf Center, it happens with the Office of Research and Policy Outreach at the
University of Ottawa.

It happens with, because of two very hardworking senior researchers, Ferhan Kandakar and
Tiana Tishbain, who we see in the background, barely as shadows with all the TV lighting.

But it doesn't happen without them.

So I want to thank all of the participants, our audience, for making this a successful
event.

And I want to also invite you to continue the dialogue.

There's a reception that begins in the back of the

and so there's no reason why we can't advance this dialogue ahead of the workshop.

do also thank you for all your participation, great questions tonight and wish you good
evening.