Why more Canadians will be hungry this holiday

In today’s The Big Story podcast, on Sunday and Monday, many of us will celebrate Thanksgiving with family and a full table. But a staggering number of Canadians — one that keeps climbing — will be making do with much less than that. Food insecurity in Canada keeps rising, and food banks in this country are strained to the limit, with no relief on the horizon.

Dr. Valerie Tarasuk is a principal investigator for PROOF, and a professor emerita at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto. “Sadly, what we can see from the statistics nationally, is that not only has the number of people living in food-insecure households risen, but the severity of the experience has increased,” says Dr. Tarasuk.

So why are food banks our only plan for the growing number of hungry Canadians? What policies could meaningfully change how we feed people in this country, and what will it take for us to get them enacted?

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