Courtesy of the Times Colonist
Photo: Boxes are filled for a food bank. An annual report on poverty in Canada from Food Banks Canada found one in 10 Canadians are living in poverty, over 40 per cent are paying more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, and 40 per cent are feeling worse off compared to last year. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
Food Banks Canada just released its annual report on poverty in Canada.
Its key findings are that one in 10 Canadians are living in poverty, over 40 per cent are paying more than 30 per cent of their income on housing (which is the Statistics Canada definition of unaffordable housing), and 40 per cent are feeling worse off compared to last year.
Of course, the core business of food banks is hunger and food insecurity.
The latter is defined by Statistics Canada as being unable to or uncertain of the ability to acquire or consume an adequate diet or sufficient food in socially acceptable ways.
A May 2025 report from Statistics Canada said that in 2023, one in four people in Canada — and almost half of people in one-parent families — reported they were living in food-insecure households.
That was a roughly 15 per cent increase over 2022, and the third annual increase in a row.
Moreover, most of that increase was among those — 19 out of 25 per cent — who experienced moderate to severe food insecurity.
This situation has led a number of cities in Ontario to declare food-insecurity emergencies.
The CEO of Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank noted in a CBC interview that “we need to feed more than one in 10 Torontonians.”
This is happening, we should remind ourselves, in one of the richest countries in the world.
Often, this situation is presented as an issue of affordability — food, housing and other basic needs are just too expensive.
But while that is true, there is another way to look at it, as Valerie Tarasuk — a prominent Canadian food researcher at the University of Toronto — notes in that same CBC interview: “I think we have a fundamental problem with income that needs to be addressed.”
That fundamental problem with income is not new.
In its 2022 report, the World Inequality Lab noted: “Income and wealth inequalities have been on the rise nearly everywhere since the 1980s, following a series of deregulation and liberalization programs which took different forms in different countries.”
What they mean, of course, is the adoption by Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. and Ronald Reagan in the U.S. of neoliberal economic policies that were then adopted more widely.
That is true of Canada too, as the Lab’s report on Canada makes clear: “Income inequality in Canada increased significantly from 1982 until the mid-2000s.”
Between the Second World War and the mid-1980s, the bottom half of the Canadian population had around 20-22 per cent of Canada’s pre-tax income, while the top 10 percent had a bit under 30 per cent, and the top one per cent had between six and seven per cent.
By 2005, that was dramatically different: The bottom half of the population received just 17 per cent of pre-tax income, the top 10 per cent had reached 38 per cent and the top one per cent got 14 per cent.
In other words, the bottom half of the population — half, note — saw their share of national income decline nearly one fifth, while the top one per cent more than doubled their share.
Since then, the report notes, “income inequality has decreased slightly although it remains far above the levels observed in the early 1980s.”
This inequality was worsened because while pretty much everyone paid between 40 and 44 per cent of their income in taxes overall in 2022, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reported last year, the 90 to 95th percentile paid only 37 per cent and the 95 to 99th percentile paid just 34 per cent — less than the lowest 10 per cent, who paid 35 per cent.
Shockingly, the top one per cent paid a mere 24 per cent of their income in total taxes.
The 2022 World Inequality Report made a vitally important point about this situation.
Noting there are significant differences in the extent of the growth of inequality between different countries, they concluded “inequality is not inevitable, it is a political choice.”
So it is up to us.
Do we want to perpetuate the poverty, hunger and unaffordable-housing situation for low-income Candians?
Or do we want to go back to the decades after the Second World War, when the rich paid their share and the bottom half took a larger share of the income?
thancock@uvic.ca
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy