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More than 200 volunteers and politicians gathered in Etobicoke Saturday for the Daily Bread Food Bank’s holiday sort.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was among those sorting and packaging a total of 90,000 lbs of food donations set to be distributed to families and individuals facing food insecurity in the city.
“I understand we’re going through tough times,” he told CBC Toronto Saturday. “Our number one focus is affordability and creating opportunities and jobs for people.”
There were more than 4.1 million food bank visits this year, Daily Bread Food Bank said in a news release this week. Additionally, more than one in 10 Torontonians currently rely on the food bank to feed themselves and their families. On average, the Daily Bread Food Bank sends out 200,000 lbs of food per day and about 1,000,000 lbs of food per week.
Food prices in Canada could also see an increase of four to six per cent in 2026, according to a December forecast by researchers at Dalhousie University.
Daily Bread Food Bank CEO Neil Heatherington said those statistics are concerning, but not new.
“There is a deepening divide between those who have and those who do not have,” he told CBC Toronto Saturday. “It shouldn’t be that way in a country as great as Canada.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was among those sorting and packaging a total of 90,000 lbs of food donations set to be distributed to families and individuals facing food insecurity in the city. (Spencer Gallichan-Lowe/CBC)
Heatherington added 60 per cent of those using food banks have a post-secondary education and 50 per cent have full-time employment.
“The social contract that we all used to have is you go to school, you get a job, you work hard, you’re going to be fine. That’s not the case,” he said.
Heatherington said while food banks and charity are helpful, they’re not the entire solution.
“Food banks fill an immediate need,” he said. “The long term solution is decent affordable housing, income supports that allow people to thrive in community and a work environment for Ontarians so that they can live.”
Affordability at ‘heart’ of decision-making, minister says
Ontario’s Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Michael Parsa was alongside Premier Ford at the food sort. He said the province’s strength is how everyone comes together to ensure no one is left behind, especially at this time of the year.
“If you look at the initiatives that we have brought in, those are making a tangible difference on the lives of every Ontarian across the province,” he said. “Affordability is at the heart of every decision we make.”
That’s just not enough, University of Toronto nutritional sciences professor emerita Valerie Tarasuk said.
“We’ve got more and more people that are struggling to make ends meet, and they’re desperate,” she said. “What I’d like to see going into 2026 is a commitment from both the provincial government and the federal government to put an end to this problem.”
Only “intelligent” income-based support and evidence-based policy making will fix the issue, said Tarasuk, who is also the lead investigator at PROOF, a research project looking for policy solutions to food insecurity in Canada.
“We really need these people to be doing their job in government,” she said. “The only explanation for the spike in food bank use and the dramatic rise in food insecurity in this country is that these guys haven’t been doing their job.”
Heatherington said, despite this, he’s hopeful some change will come about from conversations with politicians, a push for food inequity advocacy and the group of volunteers engaging with the Daily Bread Food Bank.
“It has been a really difficult time, but the community has risen to the occasion,” he said. “We are raising our voices even louder and louder with that chorus of individuals who say today is the day that we need to turn things around.”
