Advocates ‘delighted’ as Canada gets school meals

School food advocates are "delighted" that the federal government will spend $1 billion over the next five years to bolster Canada's school food programs.

The federal funding is a first for Canada. Unlike every other G7 country, Canadian students have long relied on a patchwork of programs advocates have criticized for leaving many children hungry. The new funds will make school meals available to about 400,000 more school children than those already fed at school through programs run by the provinces, territories and Indigenous communities.

The funding will ensure that existing school meal programs, many of them at risk of shutting down due to high food costs, will be able to continue to provide meals, said Debbie Field, co-ordinator of the Coalition for Healthy School Food.

"I really think they have finally understood what an important program this is," she said.

Moreover, federal officials appear to have an "appetite to grow" the program in the future, she added. The Coalition for Healthy School Food previously estimated it would cost about $2.7 billion — or $5 a day per child — to develop a national school food program.

Nearly a quarter of Canadian children are food-insecure, and over 17 per cent of households can't afford enough food, according to Statistics Canada. Research by Amber Ruez, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, estimates that school food programs can shave $130 to $190 per child off a family's monthly grocery bill.

"I would suggest we are meeting the moment," said Jenna Sudds, minister of families, children and social Development. "We're recognizing the current economic context where groceries have gotten more expensive and there are more people struggling and [we are] moving forward with this measure that will help thousands of families and children across the country."

Sudds said the government hopes to have the program implemented in time for the start of the school year in September.

Advocates have been pushing the federal government for years to create a national program, which they say has broad social benefits. Researchers have found that national school food programs can generate between 2.5 and seven times the cost of the program in health and economic benefits thanks to their impact on children's well-being and education, according to the Coalition for Healthy School Food.

The federal announcement comes as some provinces are already pushing to bolster their programs. Last April, B.C. announced a $214-million investment in its school food programs, while Ontario pledged to add $5 million to existing school food initiatives in October.

The benefits of school food programs are also long-lasting. According to a recent analysis of Sweden's decades-old program, school meals increased people's average lifetime earnings by about three per cent, rising to six per cent for people from low-income families.

Sudds emphasized that the program's potential to help ease income and wealth inequalities across the country was a key consideration in the federal government's commitment to the program.

“It's really focused on fairness, and that means fairness for every generation," she said. "Fairness is really about making sure that we support each other at every stage of life, and that starts from childhood."