Food insecure numbers continue to skyrocket

Food Banks Canada’s annual HungerCount snapshot found there were a record-high 2.35 million visits to food banks across the country this past March, a nearly nine-per-cent increase from the 2.2 million visits tracked during March 2025, a 117-per-cent increase from 2019.

Notably, the topline number still rose to over 130,000 despite 2575 food banks reporting data this year compared to 2725 a year ago.

As staggering as this data is, along with the reality that children accounted for a third of food bank visits (775,658), there is another element of the report that speaks even more resoundingly to Richard Mattern, Food Banks Canada’s director of research. 

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“I think the number that stays with me isn't the fact that we're at a new record,” said Matern. “It's what it tells us about how financially vulnerable many households have become. What it's showing, and that always strikes me, is how people have progressively lost the financial cushion that maybe once allowed them to absorb a setback.”

The report is subheaded “Impossible Tradeoffs” in a nod to how Canadians once could weather a surprise car repair, a modest rent increase, an illness in the family or a temporary layoff. But for many this is no longer the case.

“We’ve seen prices increasing by 30 per cent in the last five years, housing costs nearly 30 per cent and transportation costs at 24 per cent, if not higher when we look at earlier this year,” said Matern. “Households experience those increases simultaneously, and food insecurity is not just about the price of groceries. It’s whether you have sufficient resources left after paying the rent and keeping the lights on to also afford enough food.

The calculus is no longer the “trade-off between wants and needs, but between basic necessities,” he said.

HungerCount 2026 also found that “by the end of 2025, households in the lowest income quintile were spending the equivalent of 112 per cent of their disposable income on food, housing and transportation, compared with 91 per cent four years earlier.” 

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Households are increasingly utilizing measures such as delaying payments, borrowing money, tapping into savings and carrying debt to tread water amid financial uncertainty. 

The report also shows that while 41 per cent of clients rely on social assistance as their primary source of income, the percentage of visitors who reported employment as their source of income has risen to 18 in 2026, compared to 12 in 2019. 

HungerCount, and the forthcoming Who’s Hungry report from the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto, are historically released within several weeks of the federal government releasing its annual budget. Both resources contain a list of policy suggestions for lawmakers to consider.

Given that the March 2025 data was collected during the thick of the federal election that resulted in a Liberal victory on April 28, this year’s HungerCount represented the first opportunity to appraise Mark Carney and the Liberals' performance on this file. 

Matern credited the implementation of the groceries and essentials benefit, making the school food program permanent and boosting the Child Benefit payments as “important steps.” 

But more needs to be done, he stressed.

“A key priority for us is modernizing employment insurance, “ said Matern. "EI should function as it should, which is to prevent job loss from turning into a financial crisis, but we need a modern EI for a modern workforce. The system needs to better reflect the reality of today's workforce, which includes people in part-time, seasonal or irregular employment.” 

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Food Banks Canada would also like to see more benefits made available for people who are employed as very few programs are targeted to them. There are also calls in the report to remove barriers to disability tax credits and to establish a parliamentary committee to “study the inadequacy of social assistance across Canada.” 

Visit foodbankscanada.ca to access HungerCount 2026.

(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)

A version of this article appeared in the November 01, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Food insecure numbers continue to skyrocket".