NDP announcement delivers much-needed food for thought

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This article was published 05/02/2024 (640 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hungry kids can’t learn. We’ve known that for decades, yet Canada — one of the richest countries in the world — has been slow to ensure that all children attending school have access to proper nutrition.

Distributing healthy meals to children in schools is one of the most efficient and effective ways to address food insecurity in society. It ensures money goes directly to meal programs — breakfast, lunch, grab-and-go snacks — where there are high concentrations of children. Best of all, school-based programs are delivered with no stigma attached. Dollar for dollar, it’s one of the best ways to ensure children come to class prepared to learn, which they can’t do on an empty stomach.

So why don’t we have more comprehensive meal programs in schools? Because like so many areas of public policy, governments spend more time and resources on reactionary, back-end programming such as policing, jails and avoidable medical and addictions intervention than they do on preventative measures.

Feeding hungry kids in schools is one of the simplest and cheapest ways to give them the support they need to develop safe, healthy and prosperous lives. Yet many schools that have meal programs still struggle to administer them. Some have no meal programs at all. There are 70 schools in Manitoba on a waiting list for nutrition program funding.

Manitoba’s NDP government announced $30 million this week for school nutrition programs as part of its stated goal to make meal programs in schools “universal.” If universal means every school in the province has a fully funded, fully accessible meal program, we are still a long way from making that happen. But the added resources will help.

Consider this: In Canada, 17.8 per cent of households were “food insecure” in 2022, according to Statistics Canada. That means people in those households either worried about food running out, compromised food quality because of a lack of money, reduced food intake or missed meals entirely, sometimes for a day or more. That’s 6.9 million Canadians, of which 1.8 million were children. Those are startling numbers.

Manitoba was slightly above the national average in food insecurity at 18.9 per cent. The highest was in Newfoundland and Labrador (22. 9 per cent). The lowest was in Quebec (13.8 per cent).

There are many ways to address food insecurity, including boosting income supports through existing programs such as the Canada Child Benefit, social assistance, rent assist, old-age pensions and a higher minimum wage. Food banks have become an increasingly important resource to fight hunger.

Those are all important measures. But getting food to kids directly through schools is one of the fastest and most comprehensive ways of addressing insecurity. Considering how little it costs compared with more expensive public services, it’s madness governments don’t do more to support it.

It takes more than money to buy food for schools to support meal programs. People have to run them, a task that’s often left to volunteers, or through unpaid staffing hours.

Meal programs have to be organized; food has to be bought, stored and distributed. Programs have to be administered, including record-keeping and grant applications. It’s work. And if schools are to perform those functions effectively, many will need more than just access to more grant money for food supplies. Some need paid staff to run the programs.

We’re talking about a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things. In 2022-23, the Child Nutrition Council of Manitoba, a charitable organization that supports meal programs in schools (it accepts donations, nudge, nudge, wink, wink), received $2.5 million in provincial government funding. Along with $502,321 in other grants and fundraising, the group provided schools with about 20 per cent of the $15 million it spent on meal programs that year.

The province announced this week it’s bumping up the council’s funding to $3.87 million for the 2023-24 school year.

Next year the Kinew government is planning to spend $30 million on school meal programs, including $15 million that will go directly to school divisions and $6 million for public schools with the highest socio-economic needs. Another $9 million will be available for grants-based programs.

It’s a significant increase and it’s money well spent, especially when you consider the province spends in excess of $800 million a year on justice programs (including courts, jails and policing) and more than $500 million a year on child-welfare services. The Winnipeg Police Service spends over $300 million a year.

This week’s announcement was a solid step towards creating a universally accessible nutrition program in schools. It’s something that should have been done a long time ago.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca