Nearly 6 million people in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2021, U of T study says

About 5.8 million people in Canada experienced some form of food insecurity in 2021, according to a new study released on Wednesday by University of Toronto researchers.

That number includes 1.4 million children.

The study, Household Food Insecurity in Canada, 2021, says the total number equates to 15.9 per cent of households across all 10 provinces. The study looked at food insecurity rates in the provinces throughout the pandemic and up until the current period of record inflation.

The researchers found the problem hasn't gotten any better in the last three years.

"We've seen no palpable improvement in food insecurity for low-income households in Canada," Valerie Tarasuk, a professor of nutritional sciences at U of T's Temerty Faculty of Medicine, said in a news release on Wednesday. 

According to the study, there are major differences in food insecurity among the provinces, ranging from 13.1 per cent of households in Quebec to 20.3 per cent of households in Alberta, and Ontario was in the middle when it came to both overall and severe food insecurity. Data collected in the territories is not available yet, the study says.

Tarasuk's research group, known as PROOF, drew on data from 54,000 households in Statistics Canada's Canadian Income Survey, gathered in 2021. Researchers defined food insecurity as "inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints."

In Ontario, one in six households, or 16.1 per cent, were food insecure in 2021, a number equal to 2.3 million people. As well, 4.6 per cent, or 259,000 households in the province, experienced severe food insecurity, which means family members missed meals, reduced their intake of food, or went days without eating due to a lack of money.

"Household food insecurity is a marker of material deprivation, tightly linked to other indicators of social and economic disadvantage. Households with lower incomes are more likely to be food insecure," the report's executive summary says. 

The researchers say the high rates of food insecurity are persisting and are "deeply concerning," given the impact on human health and the health-care system. They believe the problem of food insecurity is expected to get worse if incomes fail to keep up with inflation.

"The persistently high prevalence of household food insecurity across Canada and the patterns of vulnerability documented in this report spotlight the need for more effective, evidence-based policy responses by federal and provincial governments," the report's executive summary says.

The researchers called on governments to address the vulnerability of households that are reliant on employment incomes but still unable to make ends meet, and ensure that working-aged adults not in the workforce also have sufficient incomes to meet basic needs.