Food banks across the country have been under tremendous pressure in recent weeks. While demand for food is always higher during the year-end holidays, this critical period ends after 2023, in which demand was generally higher.

According to the Director General of Food Banks in Quebec, Martin Monger, twice as many aid baskets were distributed this year compared to 2019.

Different food banks in the province distributed tens of thousands of food baskets in the period preceding Christmas, leading to depleted stocks.

He also confirmed in an interview with the Canadian Press that demand was high throughout the year and also during the Christmas season.

Faced with this situation, Monger hopes that the provincial government will adopt permanent solutions to allow residents to access food without having to resort to food banks, which currently assist one in every ten residents of Quebec, he said.

It is also essential to stop the increasing number of people resorting to food banks. The situation is unsustainable. Food banks were not created to meet demand of this size on a continuous basis. Quote from Martin Monger, Director General of Food Banks in Quebec.

Christmas is always a time of increased demand...

The situation described by Martin Monger in Quebec is similar to what is happening in other parts of the country, especially in Alberta.

Christmas is always a busy time for our food banks, but it becomes busier when we consider the demand that was high throughout December. Shauna Basil, CEO of the Alberta Food Bank, said this puts additional pressure on food banks.

Organizations providing food to those in need across the country also reported an increase in assistance this year. The National Food Bank Network in Canada recorded 1,935,911 visits to food banks in March, the latest nationally available data, an increase of 32.1% compared to March 2022.