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Starving students

 

Post secondary students use local foodbanks

Jeremy Nelson

 

WINNIPEG (CUP)—More than two
percent of all Canadians might have
starved last year had it not been for the
help of food banks, according to a
nationwide study released by the
Canadian Association of Food Banks.

Entitled Hunger Count ’97, the
comprehensive survey found that more
than 650,000 Canadians received
emergericy food assistance each month.
This represents a doubling of the
number of recipients since the survey
was last conducted in 1989. Particularly
hard-hit were Canada’s youth, who
received far more assistance than any
other sector of society—people 18 years
old or younger accounted for 41.9% of
the total number of people assisted by
Canadian food banks.

For Tom Suffield, who works with the
University of Manitoba’s financial aid
department and supervises the school’s
food bank, the numbers in the survey,
released late last year, come as no
surprise. He says increasing student debt
and tuition, combined with high
unemployment (which has hovered
around 17% for youth for a number of
years), is forcing many students to chose
between their education and eating.

“Government student aid provides
only a certain ceiling for funding for
students,” Suffield said. “If you are a
single parent, chances are that your
living and education cost will not all be
met by student loans, and you will have
to seek food bank assistance.”

At least 12 Canadian campuses now
have food banks, which serve some of
the estimated 17% of people aged 19 to
25 who live below the poverty line.

Ron Hardwick, a member of the food
bank association's board, agrees with

Suffield, adding that food banks across
Canada have witnessed a stark increase
in the number of working poor who
require assistance.

“These people have gotten jobs, but
they're minimum wage jobs. They are
bringing in $11,000 a year at the most,
and trying to support a family on that,”
Hardwick, who also helps run a
Winnipeg food bank, said. “They are the
ones using the food banks more and
more.”

The association blames the federal
government for much of the problem,
citing their 25% cut to social program
spending since 1993 as a main cause of
the dramatic rise in food bank usage.

“Canada’s social safety net was created
to provide consistent support for people
in need,” Julia Bass, executive director of
the association, said.

“With the net unravelling, whether
you eat or not may depend on whether
or not you live in a generous commu-
nity.”

But Human Resources Canada
spokesperson Robert Monday says there
is no direct link between cutbacks and
poverty.

“There have been reductions by some
governments, but we have also had
increases as well in the social program
[funding] envelope,” Monday said.

“Tr’s not a clear-cut situation of just
reduction.”

As for what the federal government is
doing to correct the problem, Monday
says its main focus is reducing child
poverty by increasing spending on the
national child tax benefit to $6-billion
from $5.1-billion. The benefit helps
families with incomes under $26,000,
and the increase will be fully imple-
mented by this July.

“The design of the program increases

the benefits to Canadian families, but it
also saves provinces [money] in terms of
social assistance payments,” Monday
said. “All of those savings were to be
reinvested in programs for low-income
families.”

As for pinpointing the source of the
poverty problem, Monday says a

 

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Secondary students are forced to visit food banks in order to make it through. What's next?

sluggish recovery from the recession is to
blame, but he admits that factors like
globalization may have played at least a
small role.

But Libby Davies, federal NDP critic
for poverty issues, says aside from cuts to
the social safety net, globalization and
free trade are the main source of
Canadian unémployment, and, ,
consequently, the main source of food
bank usage. She says it is no accident
that the doubling in food bank usage
since 1989 coincides with Canada’s entry
into the Free Trade Agreement with the
US;

According to a Canadian Centre for
Policy Alternatives study, in the first ten
years of free trade, Canadian manufac-
turers have laid off more than 12.8% of
their workforce.

“We're told so often that globalization
is inevitable,” Davies said.

“That's a myth, but governments play
into this, and then it becomes much
easier to rationalize these cutbacks and
to basically evade and completely
abandon any extensive social responsi-
bilities.”

“T think the next step is the MAI
(Multilateral Agreement on Invest-
ment],” Hardwick added. “If that is
signed, we're going to get hit again. It’s a
growth of free-trade and it’s going to
smash us.”

Unemployment in combination with
other factors like indebtedness and
declining wages is creating a situation
where most people feel hopeless,
Hardwick adds.

“But I don't think it’s hopeless,” he
cautions. “It’s going to take a lot of

   

  
 
   
  
   
  
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
  
  
   
  
  
   
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
   
  
  
   
    
  
 
 
 
 
    
 

Kevin Sallows phot!

work, and a lot of dedicated, committe
people who really know and understand
what’s going on, to correct the prob-
lem.”

Davies says those who are concerned
about rising food bank usage need to ac
locally to improve the situation.

“Understand the big forces around
you, but realize that small steps do
count—that’s where people can take
back control of what's going on around
them.”

The U of M student union seemed t¢
take these words to heart earlier this yea
when it voted to increase the funding t
the school’s student food bank by severz
thousand dollars.

“Out of a $4-million operating
budget, it’s just ludicrous that only
$5,000 [of student union money] was
allotted to an essential service like the
food bank,” Krishna Lalbiharie, the
student union researcher who helped
spearhead the motion to increase the
funding, said.

The move will certainly be welcome
by Suffield, who says the food bank is
still dependant on donations from
Winnipeg’s main food bank, even
though its original mandate was to
become self-sufficient. The U of M foo
bank is also understaffed—so much so
that it was closed for Reading Week, to
the dismay of many students who
required its assistance.

“We have to take a groundswell
approach to this problem, and never le
up and just keep going at it,” Hardwic
said. “I think that’s the only way to
attack this thing.”

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6 March 11, 1998 The Oth

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