Toronto's food bank use keeps hitting new records, faster than ever before: report
CBC
Food bank use in Toronto keeps hitting new records, with a new report finding 4.1 million visits made from March 2024 and April 2025 — an increase of hundreds of thousands from the year before.
The annual Who's Hungry report, released Monday, is a joint effort between Daily Bread Food Bank and North York Harvest Food Bank and provides a yearly profile of food insecurity and poverty in the city.
Neil Hetherington, Daily Bread’s CEO, told CBC Toronto the number of visits has been climbing at an exacerbating and alarming rate in recent years.
“It took 38 years to get to one million visits, two years to get to two million, a year to get to three,” he said. “And now we're another year and here we are at 4.1 million visits.”
That figure comes straight from this year’s Who’s Hungry report, and represents an increase of 636,962 more visits than 2024. It’s also a 340 per cent increase since 2019.
Other key findings: More than 112,000 first-time food bank clients and one in four food bank clients are children, with 18 per cent of households with children reporting their kids went hungry at least once a week.
The figures in the report come from a survey of 1,890 food bank clients representing 73 member food banks between March 2024 and April 2025. Respondents completed a detailed questionnaire about their income, housing, employment, and experiences of food insecurity.
Nearly all respondents (96 per cent) said the rising cost of living is one of the top three reasons they use food banks.
Hetherington pointed to a number of social issues contributing to the problem.
“The first is the lack of affordable housing. We get that solved, then we start to see a reduction in the number of people that need the food bank,” he said.
“The second is income supports … we want to make sure that the Ontario Disability Support Program is appropriate and that the Canada Disability Program is wholly adequate so that if you're living with a disability, you're not legislated to live in poverty.”
Craig Pickthorne, director of the communications at the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN)
An RCMP-led corruption investigation is underway into at least one current Calgary city councillor as well as a business, CBC News has learned.
Much of Newfoundland is digging out of a blustery and messy day as another storm slams into the island.
Timiskaming—Cochrane MPP John Vanthof recalls the meeting in Thunder Bay earlier this month. He was part of the nine-day road trip along Highways 11 and 17 with other NDP MPPs.
A bill before the Nova Scotia Legislature is proposing raising the age limit for support for young people who have been in the foster care or group home system to 26.
The Fredericton Police Force has reallocated funds so new staff can be hired this year to better manage evidence after a police error upended murder cases against five people.
One of two pilots killed in a plane crash at New York's LaGuardia Airport Sunday earned his wings at an Ontario college, CBC News has learned.
Air Canada passengers who were aboard Flight 8646 when the CRJ-900 aircraft struck a fire truck upon landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport on Sunday evening say the collision was sudden and forceful, and they may owe their lives to the pilots who died in the incident.
Cardiac services are set to expand at a Winnipeg hospital once regarded as one of the best in Canada for heart care.
A 26-second TikTok video has ignited a larger conversation about vulnerable populations, theft and content creation.
Some family doctors and emergency room physicians working in Edmonton hospitals warn that an April 1 end to stipend pay arrangements could put patient care at risk and increase suffering.
An Auditor General of Canada report has found that B.C. saw drastically fewer international students than was forecast ever since wide-ranging federal immigration cuts began in 2024.
Six years after e-learning became a mandatory requirement to get an Ontario high school diploma, students don't appear to be taking online school to diversify their course selection as the province had intended, according to a CBC News analysis of provincial enrolment data.
Sarnia City Council will hold a special meeting Tuesday morning to respond to social media comments made by Coun. Bill Dennis, who criticized city spending on a new mural by Indigenous artist Kennady Osborne as “virtue signalling by woke politicians” — then made a series of comments in response to a reply from Aamjiwnaang Chief Janelle Nahmabin that some have characterized as unprofessional and aggressive.