Volunteers sort and box food at the Daily Bread Food Bank, April, 2023.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail

Nick Saul is the CEO of Right To Food.

Kirstin Beardsley is the CEO of Food Banks Canada.

Marissa Alexander is the executive director of Food Secure Canada.

Across the country, more and more people can’t meet their basic needs. Families are stretching paycheques to the breaking point – juggling rising rents, transportation costs and grocery bills. These pressures aren’t limited to those living in deep poverty. It’s become mainstream: Full-time workers, students, seniors and parents are making difficult trade-offs that strain their health and well-being.

As leaders of organizations working on the front lines of food insecurity, we see these realities every day. Food insecurity is no longer a marginal issue – it affects millions of Canadians and remains one of the clearest indicators that our social and economic systems are failing.

The numbers confirm this reality. In 2024, 25.5 per cent of Canadians – roughly 10 million people, including 2.5 million children – lived in food-insecure........

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