2 in 5 Island children living with food insecurity, according to latest stats

Two out of every five children in P.E.I. were living with some level of food insecurity in 2022 — the highest rate in the country and a significant increase from the previous year, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.

Those figures show 41 per cent of Island children were living in households struggling to be able to afford the food they needed that year, up from 35.1 per cent in 2021.

Overall, 28.6 per cent of Islanders of all ages had trouble acquiring healthy food in an affordable manner in 2022, up from 23.6 per cent the year before.

"It's completely unacceptable," said Jennifer Taylor, a professor in foods and nutrition at the University of Prince Edward Island. "It means that those children are living in houses where either they or their parents are cutting the size of their meals [or] skipping meals."

The statistics on moderate to severe food insecurity show more Islanders are going an entire day without eating, Taylor said — especially parents, who choose to provide what food they do have to their children.

"That may seem really shocking, you know, in a wealthy country like Canada, [or a] beautiful province like Prince Edward Island, but it is a very simple case of households not having enough money to buy food."

Across Canada, the overall rate of food insecurity also climbed in 2022, as high inflation levels pushed up food prices. 

While declining food costs were one of the main factors slowing down inflation in the latest Consumer Price Index figures, overall food costs were nonetheless 25 per cent higher in P.E.I. in April 2024 than they had been four years earlier.

Across the country, the increase over that four-year period was 22 per cent.

"Food insecurity is a really challenging issue here. I think everybody is familiar with food inflation and some of the factors that are impacting food security," said Shaun MacNeill, director of strategy and policy with the P.E.I. Department of Social Development and Seniors.

By law, Prince Edward Island is supposed to eliminate child food insecurity in the province by 2025. That's because three years ago, the P.E.I. legislature passed a bill introduced by the Green Party to create the Poverty Elimination Strategy Act.

That legislation requires the province to develop a strategy to reduce poverty levels and sets targets to achieve that.

According to the law, P.E.I. is also supposed to eliminate chronic homelessness by 2025, as well as reduce the province's poverty rate by 25 per cent.

MacNeill said the province looks to be on track to reduce the poverty rate as intended, but described all the targets as "fairly ambitious" and "aspirational."