Food Insecurity is a Result of Inequity and Poverty

Food insecurity is primarily the result of inequity. This is most evident in the financial constraints too many people experience. Unprecedented inflation and rising costs of food, housing, transportation, etc.; coupled with economic uncertainty and rising interest rates means that many more people are struggling to put enough food on the table. All of the issues and concerns addressed in the 2015 Community Food Security Report Card with regards to Food Access are not only still prevalent today, but the situation has worsened for many people.  

Households with lower incomes are more likely to be food-insecure. “Household food insecurity is a marker of material deprivation, tightly linked to other indicators of social and economic disadvantage.”45  In 2021, across Canada, one in seven households relying on employment income were food insecure, and households relying on employment incomes made up 51.9% of food-insecure households. Food insecurity was highly prevalent among households on social assistance (63% food-insecure) as well as those who faced job disruptions and had to rely on Employment Insurance (EI) (42%) or pandemic-related benefits like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) (29%). Relying on any form of public income support except public pensions meant being very vulnerable to food insecurity.  46

Poverty is Worsening For Many

Local and national indicators show that poverty is getting worse for vulnerable populations. In 2017, it was estimated that 14% of the Thunder Bay population faced marginal to moderate food insecurity. 47 Anecdotal reports, as well as much of the data collected, suggest that this rate does not reflect the true levels of poverty in our community which is actually much higher. According to PROOF (see chart below) and echoed by the Thunder Bay Poverty Reduction Strategy (2022), some groups in our community experience poverty at a greater rate than others. These groups include: people earning their income on Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program, Indigenous people, lone-parent families, new Canadians, older adults, women, racialized peoples ,and individuals with mental health issues and disabilities. 48 It is no coincidence that these groups also experience the highest rates of food insecurity.

Approximately 77% of single parent families in Thunder Bay are led by women. The research indicates that female lone-parent households have the highest rates of food insecurity – nearly double any other household demographic. In 2020, the Thunder Bay Poverty Reduction Strategy reported that the poverty rate for one-parent families headed by a woman with a child aged 0 to 5 was 31.3%, the highest among all family types, and more than five times the rate of couple-families with a child of the same age (6.0%) 49. These figures help to explain why one in five children is food insecure in Canada. 50  

In the 2021 Census, Statistics Canada reports that 16,935 people identified as Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) living in Thunder Bay. That is approximately 14% of the metropolitan area population. 51  However, the Our Health Counts Thunder Bay studies have shown that the Canadian Census undercounts Indigenous peoples living in cities and estimates that there are actually 43,359 Indigenous people living in the city of Thunder Bay which is over three times the number reported in the census. The study also determined that 89% of Indigenous adults in Thunder Bay fall below the before-tax low-income cut-off. 52 Local poverty data for Thunder Bay is collected through the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP) annually. The 2021 data showed that 50% of participants living in poverty self-identified as Indigenous. 

Food Banks Canada’s 2022 HungerCount Report also shows that Indigenous people accessing a food bank nearly doubled from 8% in 2021 to 15.3% in 2022. Indigenous households were already having to contend with high rates of food insecurity, and the combination of a reduction in income benefits and skyrocketing living costs in 2022 have had devastating consequences.53 The climate crisis is also impacting food security for Indigenous people by impacting availability of traditional foods, limiting access to hunting and fishing territories, and reducing the availability of ice roads that can be used to deliver food to remote and northern communities. 54

Additional Barriers to Food Access in the Thunder Bay Area

While inequity (and poverty) is the primary determinant of food insecurity, there are other factors that significantly impact food access. To fully understand and appreciate these barriers, a systems approach is required to identify the underlying factors that impact different people and groups. For example, Black and Indigneous people face much higher barriers to food access due to ongoing structural racism and settler colonialism. People living in rural and remote communities also tend to have less access to food and are forced to deal more directly with polluted waterways, toxic soils, and dwindling wild game populations. It is clear that while there is more than enough food in Canada to feed the population, not everyone has the same access to food. 55  

Access to transportation is connected to both poverty and food. Focus groups and surveys conducted by the Thunder Bay + Area Food Strategy showed that, after the cost of food, lack of transportation is the next largest barrier to buying food. Although bus fares are on par to those of other Canadian cities, it is still a challenge for people with limited income to afford. People with small children or mobility issues also find it difficult or impossible to make trips to and from the grocery store using public transit due to limited routes and scheduling. As a result of anti-poverty advocacy, the City of Thunder Bay is piloting a reduced rate bus pass project for low-income riders in 2023 that will help to reduce the cost-of-transit barrier for some low-income residents.