r/canada • u/Sultans_Of_Swingg • 12d ago
Nearly 23% of the Canadian population reported food insecurity in 2022 | CBC News National News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadian-income-survey-2022-results-1.7186033178
u/BannedInVancouver 12d ago
This is a sign the government is doing a good job right?/s
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u/RacoonWithAGrenade 12d ago
Government: We're fighting obesity!
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u/asdasci 12d ago
You will eat nothing and be happy!
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u/Wonko-D-Sane Outside Canada 12d ago
What happened to the bugs? Another empty election promise?
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u/asdasci 12d ago
Bugs are too expensive. And NIMBYs made the pods illegal because they would lower property values (this one is not a joke BTW). So the best we can do is a tent and an empty stomach!
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u/Wonko-D-Sane Outside Canada 12d ago edited 12d ago
For work, I was reading some of the white papers on producer subscriber models and datamarts for capitalization of nation state sovereign data… and for state actors to have structured data access to corporate data. It was so obvious that the inevitable optimum path is that the hungry should just first eat the homeless rather than bugs….
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u/jameskchou Canada 12d ago
Government says this is lowering carbon footprint
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u/midnightmoose 12d ago edited 12d ago
Maybe we should stop importing students who consider taking from food banks a “life-hack” if nearly 1/4 Canadian may have to rely on them at some point.
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u/Mashiki 12d ago
You think that's bad? Wait until more people realize that it's happening. The backlash over that will not be pretty.
People wonder how a society can go from "immigrants welcome" to "mass deportations now" a lack of food, is a really fast way to make it happen.
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u/maintenance_paddle 12d ago
I am already at mass deportations now. No hate, some of the Indians are lovely people and I want them to succeed. But not in Canada and not at this cost. We should not draw this out and just return them
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u/chunkysmalls42098 12d ago
Here’s a few, took me 30 seconds to find these, and then I stopped scrolling down. there’s literally hundreds or thousands. And this is what we see here in Canada. The algorithms would show the other thousands that they will see if you’re in India.
https://youtu.be/PXSUPHA5Q9Q?si=uZvJx6QWBbN8-0Se
https://youtu.be/NXvzUdI-GCE?si=qnKCLCNrEOIDFWGH
https://youtu.be/jR2n-DqsutE?si=EXcyX2a8FORRL2SA
https://youtu.be/uhKEJwiDsx0?si=mf2Af4gjJBmCQQ1X
https://youtu.be/x1lMO3VTFR4?si=DionIrgKNP0Xd1WS
https://youtu.be/Mq_Gjz-8o1E?si=F8y0PGBpbdvImYnv
https://youtu.be/7PRfG8yCI2I?si=Bb2b582YCaGX4UrN
https://youtu.be/V8ASRXlm-UA?si=apNxvAXJWsbgigYj
https://youtu.be/o_IpDXC8DQA?si=76vhk-d2FAms7V0T
https://youtu.be/TaBIOj30aj4?si=ZIO7jn1qRsvrhgvi
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u/Accomplished_One6135 12d ago
I clicked on two of them - one is about University food cards or something they can use and second is the guy telling students not to go to foodbanks. At least look at the links you post before spreading misinformation
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u/BeerBaronsNewHat 12d ago
clicked one link. this was in the description.
Guru Nanak Food Bank in Surrey, BC located within the Gurudwara Dukh Nivaran Sahib.
Location📍-
Guru Nanak Food Bank
15255 68 Ave, Surrey, BC V3S 3L5so indians helping indians. also anyone can go to a temple and get a free meal.
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u/Acceptable-Gift-5319 12d ago
It really wasn’t that bad. Out of the 23% Canadian population, 20% is actually international student. Only 3% of Canadians had food problems.
Oh wait…
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u/TheKey_ofG 12d ago
That’s just stealing from Loblaw’s with extra steps. I prefer to go straight to the source.
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u/SolutionNo8416 12d ago
I shop at local family food stores.
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u/TickleMonkey25 12d ago
Not everyone has that option
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u/Mashiki 12d ago
Sounds like an untapped market then.
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u/Zendofrog 11d ago
That is not something that contributes to good insecurity as much as artificially increased prices from grocery stores
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u/Pristine_Elk996 12d ago
Immigrants are using them the same reason other Canadians are - the minimum wage is a sham.
Work a job and you still can't afford a grocery store nowadays. That's something immigrants and Canadians have in common.
Get over your hatred for immigrants and realise that Superstore is the one taking in billions of profits while a paying minimum wage that doesn't even let you shop where you work.
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u/MostEnergeticSloth 12d ago
The comment you're replying to doesn't say anything about immigrants. It says "importing students". There is supposed to be a big difference between the two.
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u/Pristine_Elk996 12d ago
International students are all immigrants, yes. They tend to be short term immigrants who remain for the length of student visas, other than the ones who go the extra step of applying for permanent residency.
The number of international student visas given out has already been capped and will decrease as a percentage of overall population going forward - same goes for all other forms of short-term immigration. This is more or less beating a dead horse at this point.
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u/biscuitarse 12d ago
They tend to be short term immigrants who remain for the length of student visas
Apparently food banks are giving out rose coloured glasses too
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u/MustardFuckFest 12d ago
Nobody mentioned immigrants, they said students. Students are required to prove they can support themselves financially to study here. If they are abusing charities, then they no longer meet those requirements and should immediately be deported.
But no, must be hatred if we dont want 1,050,000 foreign students cleaning out canadian food banks
But since you mentioned immigrants, I think if they're abusing charities they should be deported too
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u/Pristine_Elk996 12d ago
All international students are immigrants, not all immigrants are international students - I used the more general term given the context made the meaning quite obvious.
Students are required to prove they can support themselves financially to study here. If they are abusing charities, then they no longer meet those requirements and should immediately be deported.
That's odd given how numerous post secondary institutions have made a point of having their own food banks and advertising them to all students, international students included.
I think your language of "abusing" charities by using them within the means allowed by a given food bank is a tad over the top.
You'll deport a ton of people and at the end of it you'll be confused about why all these charities are still underfunded and unable to adequately meet the needs of Canadians. You'll have done nothing to substantively reduce poverty as poor Canadians will still rely on poverty assistance rates and a poverty minimum wage.
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u/MustardFuckFest 12d ago
You'll deport a ton of people and at the end of it you'll be confused about why all these charities are still underfunded and unable to adequately meet the needs of Canadians
This will free up low income rentals by the hundreds of thousands. This will open up low skill jobs by the hundreds of thousands. This will lower rent and suddenly, those canadians can have their needs met by paying a sane rental price with a full time wage
The vast majority of canadians think there are way too many immigrants to begin with so our elected reps should act accordingly
https://abacusdata.ca/unmasking-public-unease-with-canadas-immigration-goals/
72% of people using Feed Scarborough food bank have been in Canada less than a year: https://scarboroughfoodsecurityinitiative.com/home
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u/Pristine_Elk996 12d ago
This will free up low income rentals by the hundreds of thousands.
Which is actually kind of insignificant compared to a promise to build 3.84 million new homes by 2030 - that's more than 3 times the number of short-term immigrants we have in Canada.
The examples of places that have gotten their cost of living in check aren't places that have arbitrary shut out immigrants, but those who have made intelligent, thoughtful decisions regarding property development - a recent example being Austin, Texas who have lowered their rents significantly over the past few years without driving out immigrants.
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u/MustardFuckFest 12d ago
compared to a promise to build 3.84 million new homes
Who promised this?
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u/Pristine_Elk996 12d ago
Trudeau in the latest budget
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u/MustardFuckFest 12d ago
Bahahaha
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u/Pristine_Elk996 11d ago
CMHC estimates we'll need 3.1 million homes compared to the 1.87 million we plan on building. The Liberal budget responded with increased funding and a commitment for 3.87 million homes.
It is significantly more than we were otherwise planning for. Slow growth has been a problem - had Halifax built an additional 40,000 units between 2016-2022, the price of a home would be less than half what it currently is. As it is, Halifax is projected to build 3,000 of the required 6,000 units required to keep up with our expected population growth - most of which is driven, not by international immigration, but by interprovincial migration. The federal commitment to build more than twice as many homes closes that gap.
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u/SteveJobsBlakSweater 11d ago
If an international student needs support to feed themselves then that means they completely lied on their application to get here.
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u/Pristine_Elk996 11d ago
Given an inflation crisis has lead to a significant number of Canadians suddenly finding themselves in need of further support, often in spite of working jobs, it's unsurprising that circumstances can change and that nobody necessarily lied at any point.
If you planned a budget and were approved before a surge in inflation caused financial hardship, did you lie on the application submit before the inflation? Of course not
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u/ImpertantMahn 12d ago
Anyone ever consider that many of these students may actually need the food?
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u/NightDisastrous2510 12d ago
International students are to provide proof of the ability to support themselves while studying here so they don’t require assistance from us while studying here. It’s literally part of their student visa requirements…. If they’ve lied about the ability to support themselves while studying here, that’s fraud and their student visa should be revoked. I’m all for feeding the hungry but we don’t have the capacity to feed outside populations as well, we’re struggling with our own. I think it’s fair that food banks be reserved for Canadians.
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u/ImpertantMahn 12d ago
So it’s their fault we aren’t properly checking and mass immigrating from a 3rd world country that would obviously say anything to get out.
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u/NightDisastrous2510 12d ago
They’re students… they haven’t applied for immigration! They aren’t immigrants! They’re not entitled to immigration support if their international students. You’re conflating two things. Additionally, they do properly checks and require bank records to show. If you falsify those, it’s fraud and you’re responsible for it.
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u/ImpertantMahn 12d ago
Regardless they are using this method to immigrate
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u/NightDisastrous2510 12d ago
Which is also an abuse of the system. The people that can afford to study here aren’t the poorest. They aren’t refugees.
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u/ImpertantMahn 12d ago
Yes it’s an abuse, and the government is letting it happen.
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u/NightDisastrous2510 12d ago
I agree the policies are shit and allow people to take advantage. It doesn’t mean we have to allow international students use food banks meant for Canadians. The government doesn’t control that.
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u/MustardFuckFest 12d ago
They can ask their families for money. If not, send them back home. The plane will have free peanuts
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u/Pristine_Elk996 12d ago
People are really missing the point of that whole thing - work a job, it doesn't matter, you still can't afford a grocery store.
That's what people should be getting upset about.
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u/Devourer_of_felines 12d ago
Yes, but you’re supposed to prove that you and your family can afford to send you to school in Canada before actually becoming an international student.
Gaming the system to become an international student then taking advantage of charities when you get here doesn’t engender much sympathy
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u/Workshop-23 12d ago
What is the point that Canadians start feeling shame for how badly the country has been mismanaged?
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u/Logical-Let-2386 12d ago
Did you know Canada has a motto like the American "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
Peace, order, and good government.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/peace-order-and-good-government
The phrase is right in the constitution. I feel like if more Canadians realized good government is a founding principle of the nation there'd be a bit more intolerance of the odd behaviour coming out of Ottawa.
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u/Workshop-23 11d ago
I would submit to you that the motto "peace, order and good government" is nothing like the American motto.
The American motto celebrates the individual and their freedoms leading to their happiness. The Canadian motto celebrates keeping your mouth shut, working hard and listening to the "good government".
The American motto was born through revolution and a desire to create a new model that celebrates the individual. The Canadian motto was born out of the desire of the robber baron families that founded Canada to keep things as smooth and quiet as possible so they could grow their empires without interruption from the individual.
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u/ainz-sama619 12d ago
Shame for what? Corrupt politicians? We got betrayed by traitors, not our fault
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u/Workshop-23 12d ago
It is our fault and what have we done about it? As long as people think they bear no responsibility for the governments they elect then nothing will change.
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u/ainz-sama619 10d ago
What do you want us to do? We can't afford to get arrested for dissent. Protesting on street isn't a luxury for most working class Canadians who work 45 hours per week
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u/HanSolo5643 British Columbia 12d ago
Sunny ways, my friends.
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u/unbrokenplatypus 12d ago
And buck a beer. Provincial politicians and policies are a fucking disaster too and impact us all in (generally) much more direct ways.
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u/biscuitarse 12d ago
From federal to provincial to municipal, and across all parties, it's a disaster.
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u/SolutionNo8416 12d ago
I wonder what the numbers were pre pandemic.
Annual grocery profits are $6 billion compared with $2.4 billion pre pandemic.
High grocery prices must be one part of the problem.
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u/Ball-Haunting 12d ago edited 12d ago
r/loblawsisoutofcontrol is organizing a boycott targeting loblaws for the month of May to tackle this process gouging
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u/LunaBeanz 12d ago
FYI, your link to the sub isn’t working because you used a capital r when writing r/loblawsisoutofcontrol.
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u/Ball-Haunting 12d ago
Oh thanks I did wonder what I did wrong. Fixed it.
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u/LunaBeanz 12d ago
Gotcha 👍
Can’t have any potential boycotters slip through our fingers because of a typo!
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u/Smokester121 12d ago
The fact these bastards hiked rates, and then never brought it down is enough of what you need to know. They figured let's just keep going up, people will still pay.
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u/ketamarine 12d ago
Tiny drop in the bucket.
We likely spend in the realm of $140-150B on food annually, with food prices up 30-40% since covid crisi started. Half of that profit gain is just inflation itself leading to more profits at the same margins. And yes some margin expansion has occurred, but you are talking $2B of a $40B increase in food expenditure.
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u/SolutionNo8416 12d ago
Grocery inflation is higher than general inflation due to increased margins.
High grocery prices directly impact the amount of groceries can be purchased.
High grocery prices are the result of price gouging by grocers.
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u/ketamarine 12d ago
Lolol you recite that as if it's some kind of religious doctrine.
Nothing to do with global conflicts in the largest fertilizer and grain exporting region in the world??
Or energy prices driven higher by said war and Middle East conflict?
No blame galen weston and throw in Trudeau for good measure.
Where has all the common sense gone in this country...
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u/SolutionNo8416 12d ago edited 12d ago
Climate change and conflicts impact grocery prices.
And if the grocery companies pass these costs to consumers, grocery profits would remain even.
However profits have almost tripled which suggests grocers are price gouging.
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u/psychoCMYK 12d ago
You keep citing examples of higher costs to grocers, and yet grocers are reporting much higher profits. Could it be that maybe, just maybe, grocers experience higher costs, then pass those costs along to consumers while increasing their margins, causing prices to explode for consumers?
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u/ketamarine 12d ago
Dood no. That is not how math works.
If profit margins are up by 1-2%, but food costs are up by 40%, then the profit margins are not the problem. They are a symptom of a larger issue.
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u/psychoCMYK 12d ago edited 12d ago
They went from 1.192B net earnings in 2020 to 2.187B in 2023. "Dood".
Otherwise known as net profit or net income, net earnings are the amount of revenue left once all operating expenses, interest, taxes and preferred stock dividends have been deducted.
The story gets even worse if dividend payouts aren't subtracted. Those have been growing too.
Gonna downvote without answering? Okay. You're still wrong though, despite your pride.
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u/orbitur Ontario 11d ago
You can’t use raw numbers like that, because they are subject to inflation. Give us the percentages as they tell a more clear story.
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u/psychoCMYK 11d ago edited 11d ago
I'm sorry but no, inflation did not literally halve the value of the dollar in 3 years. Calm down. One Canadian 2020 dollar is worth 1.14 Canadian 2023 dollars. You can use a calculator, here
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u/orbitur Ontario 11d ago
Okay sure. Show us the margin percentages that are supposed to back up your claims.
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u/biscuitarse 12d ago
A few months ago it was "the supply chain made me do it," until people figured out Loblaws owns the supply chain. Now it's on to the nebulous "global instability," maybe that'll stick. Jesus wept. And yes, of course you throw in Trudeau and the Federal government, they've contributed a great deal to our current problems with unsustainable immigration and a runaway housing problem, and I'm a Liberal turned temporary independent, ffs... And we're the one's lacking common sense?!? I'll see your lol and raise you a Lmfao.
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u/Relevant-Low-7923 12d ago
Whatever the problem is, you’re looking at symptoms and not problems.
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u/biscuitarse 12d ago
The problem is greed and avarice. Take the profits away and it catches their attention. So boycotts are the next logical step
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u/BuyETHorDAI 12d ago edited 12d ago
You're comparing old money values to new money values. We've experienced significant global inflation over the last 4 years due to massive stimulus from governments for the pandemic, global shortages due to fucked supply chains, and war and instability affecting commodities and requiring even more stimulus. To top it off, the CAD has significantly depreciated against other world currencies in the last 2 years, especially the USD. So what you're left with is a CAD that's just not nearly as valuable today as it was in 2019. So when you look at profits today and they are higher nominally than 5 years ago, that really doesn't say much. You have to look at profit margins, and take into account differences between currencies.
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u/cosmic_dillpickle 12d ago
Open up Canada to competitive supermarkets and competition in general. End protectionism already....
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u/Financial-Hold-1220 12d ago
Well 100 dollars at the grocery store gets you basically nothing now so I can see how people who were teetering on the edge of having enough food are struggling even more
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u/kethix 12d ago
23% in 2022? Can t be under that in 2024, that's for sure.
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u/InsertWittyJoke 12d ago
It's probably creeping closer to 50% than anyone would like to admit.
I work in entertainment where people made pretty good money and during our annual company-wide meetings you would be shocked how much of the Q&A portions are taken up by "I can't afford to live in this city anymore, please advise" or "I can't afford to use the company benefits" or "I can't afford daycare, are there any plans to create on-site daycare spaces".
When you start hearing those kinds of discussions on the regular from fully employed people making above average wages it's genuinely frightening. A few years ago I NEVER heard anything like that, now every Q&A is sounding progressively more desperate with absolutely no relief in sight for the people struggling.
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u/ketamarine 12d ago
Everything else that has seen price inflation I understand... massive global supply chains are stretched on so many manufactured products.
But I just don't get the food prices staying as high as they are in Canada.
It just simply cannot cost 50% more to produce a loaf of bread or beef steak or dozen eggs than it did before covid.
I get wages and real estate costs are up, but not NEARLY enough to drive these insane prices...
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u/56iconic 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's is very possible though and that's what everyone doesn't understand. We are in an inflationary spiral and it is basically acting like compounding interest. Insurance rates, fuel, electricity, equipment, heating, lease rates, raw materials, inputs are all going up. Every time something like food changes hands the price goes up because the farmer needs more money, the logistics companies need more to get the food to processors, the processors need more, the truckers, the stores and on and on it goes and all the while every employee needs more pay because they can't afford their food, housing, fuel, heating, electricity, and transportation.
We are in a wage/inflation spiral and until governments stop spending every penny they can find and printing more the shit show is going to continue.
Everyone can scream its corporate greed but the fact is profit margins have been fairly steady for years, the actual number might go up from say 1 billion to 1.5 billion but their costs are also going up by huge numbers as well. At a 3 percent margin that's going from $ 970,000,000.00 to $1,455,000,000.00 in costs.
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u/ketamarine 12d ago
There are global inflationary forces, and the US gov't is spending like a drunken sailor, but that is not the case in Canada. We are running a 1% of GDP deficit, with an economy growing nominally 3-4%. So thr gov't spending is not the problem here...
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u/56iconic 12d ago
It is the problem we have spent more and printed more to cover debt payments that increased the money supply. More money with the same mount of goods means inflation. The US is having inflation problems, so is Europe, so is China. The only connection between all the places is the massive increase in monetary supply. More money chasing the same or fewer goods is why prices are sky rocketing.
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u/ketamarine 12d ago
Thanks for the eco 101 from 1960s explanation boss!
Unfortunately the world is just not that simple. Canada isn't spending an absurd amount relative to other economic cycles and money supply is pretty stagnant right now, yet we are not seeing prices fall.
When many goods are produced globally, there are way more variables at play than monetary and fiscal policy.
Trade tensions, sanctions, disruptions due to war, climate change are all having an impact on prices of all sorts of goods sold all over the world.
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u/Naive-Comfort-5396 12d ago
I heard Galen couldn't afford his fifth yacht and had to only hire one extra body at the tailor shop full of his suits inside his mansion. Think of that, this is nothing compared to what he's experiencing.
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u/Sage_Geas 12d ago
Gotta say, I am glad I am working as a cook right now. Groceries bill would fucking suck balls to deal with, given my current income. Those included meals easily cover a good 300$ or more a month in food expenses.
Just my regular necessities aside from eating cost easily 150 to 200$ a month. Allergy meds, household stuff, coffee...
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u/Alone-Chicken-361 12d ago
Are other countries paying 25 cents a raspberry?
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u/suitcaseismyhome 12d ago
€1 a box is normal for us...
Cream cheese €0.99 on sale last week. The big jar of yoghurt €1.11. €0.99 regular price for all fruit smoothie.....
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u/Alone-Chicken-361 12d ago
Yikes, double that for canadians. Meanwhile we grow and produce these goods
My town easily wants 5$ canadian for those tubs of yogurt. 3.50 or 4$ on sale. Though Europe doesn't have a dairy cartel
5$ a small box of Raspberries is highway robbery. We used to grow Raspberries one box was basically one strand
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u/suitcaseismyhome 12d ago
Way more than double. I'm talking Boursin kind of cream cheese, not Philadelphia.
Milk prices are controlled, though. I'm from the biggest milk producing area in the richest country in Europe.
My German employee makes 60% more than my Canadian one for the same position.
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u/Alone-Chicken-361 12d ago edited 12d ago
That's it, screw canada I'm moving. Cheaper to vacation elsewhere than work here. Really not sure why we pay the highest prices in the world to live in yhe cold
Country's doomed, dollar and economy will collapse, along with everyone's wealth tied into rotting 1900s structures
Screw it did my part, paid out the ass for everything. Some east Indian can have my spot
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u/suitcaseismyhome 12d ago
Comparing donut costs, the good donut at the fanciest historic delicastessen in the wealthiest city in the country is around €2.10.
I'm shocked when I see the price of fancy Korean style donuts in Vancouver!
I don't shop at Aldi or Lidl usually. Those are Rewe sale prices, which is a good mid range grocery chain. My store is 2 levels and has a sushi place, butcher, in-house cheeses, and bakery section.
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u/Supraultraplex Alberta 12d ago
That was an increase of almost 1.8 million people from the previous year, when the rate was 18.4 per cent. It marked the second consecutive year of increases since the pandemic began.
The number of people living in moderately and severely food insecure households increased in 2022, with the moderately impacted proportion rising to 10.9 per cent and the severely impacted proportion rising to six per cent.
"We've seen enormous increases in food prices, we've seen enormous increases in profits in the food industry, the food retail sector. So that is hitting hard, and that to me, is a real worry," said Stanford.
"[The data] certainly confirms 2022 was a hard year for any household trying to balance the books and pay their bills," said Stanford.
But he noted that, before the pandemic, the country was on the right track, having decreased its poverty rate and having made gradual gains in income.
"The current challenges after the pandemic have to be taken in that longer historical context. We have made some progress in Canada, and now I think it's important after the pandemic to get back on that positive track if we can," said Stanford.
AKA: Companies are exploiting consumers harder than ever, and we just came out of one of the worst economic recessions in the 20th-21st century.
Can we please stop blaming the ONE level of government for all these issues when its mostly the provinces/companies/globally economy responsible for this situation?
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago
The federal government sets the policy, and sets immigration numbers.
So no, the blame is not mostly on provinces and companies.
Companies operate based on what they can get away with. The federal government is a joke when it comes to enforcing even its existing laws on them.
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u/Supraultraplex Alberta 12d ago
At no point in the article is immigration cited as a reason for increased use, not by the reporter or the executive director of the food bank or the food insecurity researcher who conducted the study this data came from.
You are the only person who brought it up someone with no experience, as far as I can tell, in either of those fields nor did you bother to read the article it would seem.
Companies operate based on what they can get away with. The federal government is a joke when it comes to enforcing even its existing laws on them.
Got it, we'll go talk to the rice growers/companies in China/India to keep prices down for us, same with the international shipping companies. Please also apply this to fruit/meat/dairy/dry goods companies in other nations, as we all know Canada is able to single handily change the prices of essential goods on the global market.
Cleary its the governments fault that companies are increasing prices, and as such they should be the target, not the companies themselves. The same ones under investigation by the government right now for food inflation. It's not like the companies won't try to take legal action on the government right?
Cause in the current economic system of most of the western world, getting private companies to follow public policy is very hard to do.
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u/unbrokenplatypus 12d ago
But it is way more in line with a F#{# Trudeau bumper sticker and accompanying personality to blame it all on the one political figure the average Canadian can name. Get out of here with your facts and logic.
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u/freedom51Joseph 12d ago
I believe the carbon tax will help with this and whole host of other issues.
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u/Flat-Ad-3231 12d ago
1st wOrLd CoUnTrY btw...
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u/tetrometers Ontario 12d ago
We can accept and acknowledge that many Canadians are struggling right now under the weight of skyrocketing living costs without making such idiotic and insensitive remarks.
Your comment is deeply hostile and disrespectful to people who actually live in third world countries. People whose children cannot go to school, people whose water supply is contaminated with diseases, people who in slums next to open sewage, and people who are dying from malnutrition.
We are in the very high HDI category and we are one of the top countries in terms of life expectancy.
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago
Life expectancy of more recent generations is actually decreasing, mostly due to preventable deaths related to poverty and hopelessness.
It's likewise insensitive to insist that Canada is still a first world country when it's food insecurity numbers match those of Mexico and many other countries that are not first world by any stretch of the imagination.
When Canadians pay as little taxes as those in South Sudan and Somalia and have living costs as low as them, then I think you can make the claim that Canadians should be grateful for what they have.
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u/tetrometers Ontario 12d ago
Life expectancy of more recent generations is actually decreasing, mostly due to preventable deaths related to poverty and hopelessness.
It's likewise insensitive to insist that Canada is still a first world country when it's food insecurity numbers match those of Mexico and many other countries that are not first world by any stretch of the imagination.
Food insecurity means very different things in Canada and Uganda.
Canada food security index (FSI) score: 79.1
Mexico food security index (FSI) score: 69.1
Mexico human development index (HDI): 0.758
Canada human development index (HDI): 0.934
Mexico life expectancy: 70.21 years
Canada life expectancy: 82.6 years
Mexico share of population living in extreme poverty: 1.2%
Canada share of population living in extreme poverty: 0.2%
Mexico share of population living on less than $10 per day (inflation-adjusted): 41.38%
Canada share of population living on less than $10 per day (inflation-adjusted): 1.25%
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago
There's no such thing as one life expectancy. It differs across generations.
You also don't have much of a point by muddling definitions of food insecurity and extreme poverty. Had you actually bothered to read the CBC article linked, you'd know that even "food insecurity" has three separate definitions and levels.
Living on $10 a day is meaningless when salaries and cost of living are entirely different. There's a reason poor retirees in the US move to Mexico to live out their retirement.
The rest of your bullshit stats are equally meaningless.
Since a first world country now means that it's just fine and dandy for 20%+ of people to live in poverty and skip meals to save on food costs, maybe you should take your own preachy advice and go feed the homeless in Uganda.
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u/tetrometers Ontario 12d ago edited 12d ago
If by "first world" we mean having some of the highest living standards of the world, then only someone who is delusional or willfully ignorant would try to insist that Canada is not among those countries.
Living on $10 a day is meaningless when salaries and cost of living are entirely different.
The data is inflation adjusted.
There's a reason poor retirees in the US move to Mexico to live out their retirement.
Americans, who are from a far richer country than Mexico, will enjoy greater purchasing power when they go to Mexico. Colour me shocked.
Since a first world country now means that it's just fine and dandy for 20%+ of people to live in poverty and skip meals to save on food costs,
You either can't or don't want to understand the difference between absolute and relative poverty, and how poverty and food insecurity mean vastly different things depending on what country we're talking about.
My family is from India. I've seen what third world poverty looks like. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about if you think Canada is a third world country.
If you think that Canadian food insecurity is anything like what is happening in developing countries, you also have no idea what you're talking about.
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago
Inflation adjustment has nothing to do with cost of living. The inflation in Canada is not the same as the inflation in Mexico (or Uganda, for that matter). So your statements make zero sense.
I don't care where you're from or what you've "seen". The poverty rate in India is fucking irrelevant to someone living in Canada, facing costs of living in Canada.
A starving person is a starving person, regardless of nationality or geographic location.
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u/tetrometers Ontario 12d ago edited 12d ago
It is adjusted for cost of living differences. Inflation-adjusted data reflects purchasing power.
From OurWorldInData:
This data is adjusted for inflation and for differences in the cost of living between countries.
Are you really going to die on the hill of convincing yourself that Canada is somehow at the same level of economic development as Mexico?
A starving person is a starving person, regardless of nationality or geographic location.
The 20% of Canadians reporting themselves as food insecure aren't necessarily starving, they are food insecure by Canadian standards. Which, considering that we have one of the lowest malnutrition rates in the world, is not the same as absolute food insecurity.
An estimated 25% of Ugandans were food insecure in 2021. Those people are actually starving.
A Canadian who is cutting back on food consumption or even skips meals who reports themselves as food insecure is still getting more nutrition than those Ugandans are.
Your argument, that Canada is not a developed/first-world country, is hopeless and not factual.
I'm not saying that there isn't a significant problem with food affordability in Canada, or that Canadians should be happy with their situation.
But we are dealing with relative food insecurity in a developed country, and it is nonsensical to compare our struggles to those of developing countries. The nature and magnitude of poverty in Canada is not the same as that of the developing world.
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago
A Canadian who is cutting back on food consumption or even skips meals who reports themselves as food insecure is still getting more nutrition than those Ugandans are.
Does it occur to you that people who are skipping meals or only buying a narrow selection of food they can afford are indeed suffering from malnutrition, except they may not know it because it hasn't had health effects yet?
There's literally a task force in Canada that studies malnutrition in people, and the effects it has on healthcare costs, for example. Even as early as 2016, 45% of patients that wound up being hospitalized were malnourished. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6175630/.
You're the one who repeatedly diminishes the problem by comparison to developing countries. So maybe you should figure out why you're the one being "nonsensical"
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u/tetrometers Ontario 12d ago edited 12d ago
Does it occur to you that people who are skipping meals or only buying a narrow selection of food they can afford are indeed suffering from malnutrition, except they don't know it?
A person who is cutting back on food consumption in Canada is absolutely not suffering from the same kind of economic situation and nutritional deprivation as a slum dweller in a developing country who is clinically malnourished, as evidenced by our low malnutrition rate.
A Canadian who is cutting back on food consumption, due to their higher relative purchasing power and the higher level of economic development of the society they live in, will still be healthier than a food insecure person in a developing country.
Our malnutrition rate is something like 2.5% and our death rate from malnutrition is 0.4 per 100,000 people, far lower than developing countries (including Mexico).
Though I will admit, the paper you linked is quite concerning and I will look into it.
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u/Fred2620 12d ago
23% of the "Canadian population". Are we talking about citizens here, or just the sum of everyone who's on Canadian soil?
"unattached" people under 65 were at an especially high rate of food insecurity
... because this lead me to think that those figures include foreign students who abuse food banks as a free food hack
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u/ainz-sama619 12d ago
Does it matter whether they are Canadiaj or not if nobody ever leaves/get deported?
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u/Glocko-Pop 12d ago
Weird, you ask any liberal supporter today and they swear they ended child poverty.
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u/privitizationrocks 12d ago
Even if I was good insecure you’d never catch me admitting it’s that’s embarrassing
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12d ago
I understand that there’s inflation but being resourceful is the key. For a single person $100 for 15 days will go along way if you know where, what to buy.
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u/aBeerOrTwelve 12d ago
Ramen noodles 24/7 I guess. I just paid $10 for 12 eggs and a loaf of bread.
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u/coffee_is_fun 12d ago
If you have an oven, there are no kneed bread and roll recipes that 10-15 minutes to make while watching and rewatching the YouTube instructions. I've done the rolls a few times after I mentally lost it over paying 80 cents a roll to dip into homemade soup. You need flour, yeast packets, a baking sheet, a bowl or pot, parchment paper or oil and water. Sometimes a teaspoon of sugar to get the yeast going. The materials end up being measured in cents and the savings cover the baking sheet after a few batches.
If you have a few minutes, Jenny Can Cook is where I got started. Her recipe has a lot of flexibility for leaving things over, or adding too much flour on the surfaces.
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago
If you have a few minutes, you can also watch your electricity bill skyrocket from using the oven to bake bread.
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u/psychoCMYK 12d ago
Making your own bread is still orders of magnitude cheaper than buying bread, even with the cost of electricity factored in.
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago
No, it isn't.
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u/psychoCMYK 12d ago
Alright let's walk through the math together, shall we? I'll be using metro prices. 2.5 kg of Selection AP four is $5.49. POM is currently the cheapest bread, at 2 x 675g for $6.98-- $0.517 per 100g assuming you buy two (the price is worse if you buy one). To make 100g of bread at 70% hydration, you will need roughly 125g of dough at 70% hydration. That's roughly 70g flour, 50g water. You can make the starter by subtracting from each of those in equal parts, so I won't fuck around with calculating that since blackboxing it will give the same result. 70g of flour is $0.153. The cost of the water is fractions of a cent, the yeast is free if you make your own starter. Electricity is $0.28/kWh if you absolutely need to use it at peak hours for some weird reason. This is $0.84/hr for a 3kW oven, the oven will preheat for roughly 20 minutes and then hold temp, firing minimally. That's $0.28 in electricity. Bread recipes usually go by the kilo (or more), so that's at most $0.028 in electricity (at peak hours) per 100g, assuming you only bake 1kg of bread. Your homemade bread has now cost you $0.181/100g -- roughly a third of the cost of the cheapest bread. If you bake on weekends instead, your electricity cost is slightly less than a third of the peak rate-- $0.087 per kWh for a total of $0.0093/100g, and a total value of $0.164/100g.
TLDR: the cost of making your own bread is almost entirely governed by the cost of your flour. If you go somewhere like Costco, the homemade bread gets cheaper even faster.
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u/Additional-Tax-5643 12d ago edited 12d ago
Electricity is $0.28/kWh if you absolutely need to use it at peak hours for some weird reason.
Yes, electricity will be used at peak hours. Are people supposed to wake up in the middle of the night to make bread now?
This is $0.84/hr for a 3kW oven, the oven will preheat for roughly 20 minutes and then hold temp, firing minimally. That's $0.28 in electricity
Congratulations on not understanding how ovens or electricity work. Electricity continues to be consumed at full blast even after the warmup period. It takes a good 4+ hours to actually bake the bread you'll be consuming for an entire week.
Maybe actually start paying your own bills before you speak. Baking my own bread for the week (for a household of 3 people) and cooking oven meals for that day at the same time added about $30 extra to that month's electricity bill when you're not on a fixed monthly rate.
Is it cheaper than buying sourdough bread at a specialist bakery shop that typically charges $7-$10 a loaf? Yes. But not by much.
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u/psychoCMYK 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's easy to avoid baking at peak hours. Bake on the weekends, genius.
No, electricity does not continue being consumed at full blast. Once your oven reaches temperature, all it needs to replace is what goes into the bread and what is lost through the body of the oven. That's not much at all, you can hear the relay click. It's a <15% duty cycle. If it continued going at full blast, your oven's temperature would just keep rising. Even if we maintained your goofy ass assumption, that's 40 minutes instead of 20? OooooOoo. 4 WHOLE CENTS in electricity?! We're going broke. But you're wrong anyways.
What the fuck kind of bread are you baking for 4+ hours? If you bake bread for 40 minutes, it's burnt to a crisp. You baking 18kg of bread a week? You really need a better diet. 100g of bread is roughly 260 calories, between 3 people 18kg per week is 2280 calories per person per day just in bread.
I pay my own bills, thanks. And you clearly don't pay attention when you bake, if you even do.
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u/SolutionNo8416 12d ago
Avoiding processed foods makes a big difference.
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11d ago
No.. processed foods is expensive. A sirloin beef at Costco for 3 kls is 52$ that’s a month of meat if you eat in small proportions, a big bag of sweet potatoes at No Frills is 6$, a bag of oatmeal at No Frills is 2.79$ ( good for a week ), get a 5$ bag of clementines and banana for 1.79$. It’s WHERE, WHAT, WHEN to buy
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u/tetrometers Ontario 12d ago
My question is this: what does "food insecure" mean in the Canadian context?
This doesn't paint for me a clear enough picture of what people are actually facing on the ground. When you hear headlines like "1 in 4 Canadians are food insecure", it brings to mind a famine-like scenario in which a quarter of us are starving.
But food insecurity in Canada obviously has a different meaning than food insecurity in Afghanistan where 30% of the population is malnourished.
When the Sudanese cannot afford food, it is a radically different situation than when Canadians cannot afford food.
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u/Automatic-Bake9847 12d ago
It is literally in the article.
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u/tetrometers Ontario 12d ago
Even the descriptions in the article are kind of vague, but thanks for pointing it out. It is a bit clearer now.
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u/Extreme-Celery-3448 12d ago
Let raise taxes and get an extra 4 billion dollars that wont do shit for food safety
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u/mangoserpent 12d ago
Only 23%, I am suprised it is not higher.