the middle class is disappearing so fast and can't afford to make contributions to it! we can barely afford groceries for ourselves as it is. it is a huge error to expect society-supported food banks to be the social safety net for canada when we're just two grocery corporations in a trenchcoat
Dude, what Trudeau did to earn the ire of a large portion of Canadians was a weak-ass vaccine mandate and telling people to wear masks. Everything comes back to Covid. Most Canadians were decently happy with him, even after Covid hit. It wasn't until the inflation hit— and that was global, not limited to Canada.
Their GDP is lowest in western nation, wages are almost the lowest in Western nation, no one can afford housing without roommates and 3 jobs, they spiked their immigration far more than the infrastructure could handle.
Why are wages so low? Because corpoartions will go with immigrants over Canadians because they're more likely to take the low wage and not complain.
Why can no one afford housing? Because corporations are buying up the market and overinflating prices, while landlords set outrageous rents and do the bare minimum to maintain the property.
Why did they increase immigration? To create a cheap workforce for corporations.
That’s the thing about prolific migration, you have the most tenacious, relentless and ambitious cut of people from far away, who have zero ability to feel pain, and they will come and gain access to the bounty of the West.
These traits have been long since bred out of native westerners, and any westerners who do have those genes well the genes are dormant due to decades of coasting on the wave of the peak of our flourishing.
The fact that food banks across Canada are collapsing is heartbreaking, but it’s not surprising given the state of the economy. When you see stats like a 90% increase in food bank visits since 2019, with even full-time workers relying on them, it’s clear that this isn’t about budgeting or personal failings, it’s systemic. People are being squeezed on all sides by skyrocketing grocery prices, unaffordable housing, and stagnant wages.
What’s especially upsetting is that food banks, which were meant to be emergency stopgaps, are now a cornerstone of the social safety net. And they’re buckling under the weight. The Ottawa Food Bank doubling its operating budget in five years, yet still struggling to meet demand, shows just how much the government is failing to address the root causes of poverty. It’s great that food banks provide additional services, like referrals to employment or mental health supports, but they shouldn’t have to. The CEO is right: “Charity exists when policy doesn’t.” We need real solutions, like raising social assistance rates, increasing the minimum wage, and tackling inflation at its core. Otherwise, we’re just throwing Band-Aids on a growing wound.
I can acknowledge that in the U.S., wages are perhaps throttled below increases in national productivity, and there is room to increase them without automatic inflation in theory.
But in reality, me thinks that mental health and resource scarcity or even just poor distribution of resources and overcomplicated global interconnection is what is behind increasing difficulty in accessing or affording food.
The simplest answer is "because too many people need them". We should absolutely then ask "why do so many people need them", but let's not lose sight of that simple insight.
We are living in a time where people increasingly can't afford the food they need to survive. And it's very likely to get worse. One of the scariest concepts that it took me a long time to internalize - and I still haven't completely - is that of lag times. We want to imagine that we can change in an instant, that a bill or an invention or a protest will flick a switch and all is well. But problems don't appear out of thin air, not even black swans. And by the time all the trends and reasons converge to result in a visible issue of too many people needing food from food banks, you're not likely to solve the problem by a mere reallocation of a little bit of tax revenue. You'll simply push it somewhere else, like toothpaste in a tube.
In Canada, if you work for the gov (a lot do) or have a strong union (teachers, cops, nurses, etc.), or are in the natural resource sector (specifically oil and gas)... you're keeping up with inflation and them some.
Everyone else, is fuckaroo'd and basically drowning under inflation.
But the grocers don't have to reduce prices, because the first group of people are able to pay more. The second group of people end up at the food bank.
In Canada groceries are basically held for ransom by 2 or 3 conglomerates.
Canada long held the reputation of being more social and civilized than the U.S., but in reality, the same scarcity and economic structures exist there as the US so it doesn’t matter ppl still are hard up.
People in the U.S. still think socializing healthcare will fix everything here and maybe sure huge bills for a minor hospital stay will go away but then you will have trouble accessing care in a different way
We’re watching collapse in real-time all around us with climate change driving up the price of groceries, causing mental health problems, spreading wildfires, and causing political upheaval. Each year will be progressively worse than the last. Fun times.
It's why we are choosing not to have any ourselves. Feels incredibly selfish to bring a new life into a world that feels like it's teetering on the edge.
I'm 27, my whole life all I wanted was to have my own family. People always disagree with me, and tell me "you never know." No, I do fucking know.
I have a whole list of reasons, I find it immoral at this point. Better yet, I don't like this world, how could I bring a being into a world I already hate? Because I'm selfish? The world has enough selfishness in it already. I hate that people can't at least at the bare minimum understand where I'm coming from. It wasn't an easy decision to come to, it has been years in the process of thinking, meanwhile these people just wonder what they'll watch for TV tonight.
25 years ago, in pretty much any political discussion on the Internet, you could reliably expect someone to pipe in with a comment that hemp would fix everything, and I mean everything. You could even call it "Chong's Law", a distant cousin to Godwin's Law.
I wonder if the reflexive comments about having children I've seen on pretty much any discussion about climate (not just here, to be sure) could fall into the same category - gratuitous asides that add nothing to the conversation but do serve to alienate anyone who is not already part of the in-group (not to mention faint echoes of the eugenicism and racism that hovered around the edges of population discussions before the World Wide Web).
I've been in the sustainable population circle for nearly my entire life and those who understand for what it is, never bring up race or eugenics. It's an ecological concept where the human species is consuming faster than what the planet can regenerate. A lot of people tend to focus on the consumption part only -- probably trying to avoid being called a racist. That shows they don't understand this concept either because nature isn't regenerating more resources because it's happier when a certain race reproduces. There's just too many, consuming too much, way too fast. And with our current population, no lifestyle is sustainable.
You can report the racist comments when/if they are made, but trying to shut down discussions and topics before a single racist comment show up because "it can happen" make it look like the person is not worried about racism at all and is just using it as a tool against the overpopulation subject.
We've seemingly passed peak food production between 2012 and 2018, so now hunger increases 0.5% per year. It'll slowly accelerate since climate change drives this.
Of course, overpopulation is a major factor here, even rich countries with declining populations have an overpopulation problem.
With Trudeau on the way out, the conservative candidate for PM (whoever that ends up being) will say, "I will bring down costs. I will make sure every Canadian has enough to eat. I will make Canada great again!" And people will vote for that candidate in greater numbers than the liberal candidate, and things will get worse.
Yeah it's that wanker Pierre and it'll probably be by a landslide. We have greatly greatly underestimated how stupid and selfish most people are and I have zero faith in my fellow Canadians at this point to actually vote in their best interests.
It's Pierre Poilievre, if you are curious. And he's absolutely taking his cues from what's happening south of the border. And the Conservatives will most likely win a majority government in the upcoming election (you don't vote for the Prime Minister in Canada, unless you happen to live in the riding in which they are running).
It's so frustrating reading comments from people that probably don't even know well their domestic political reality, state some total non-sense about other countries political reality.
We keep setting terrifying records at our local food bank across the border, as well. It's a problem spanning North America, particularly where housing is most expensive. A lot of talk about food prices, and that is true, but what's driving food insecurity has much more to do with rising housing costs and availability at lower incomes.
60 million plus North Americans have to choose which parts of the bottom rung of Maslow's to sacrifice first. There's functionally no housing bank, so it all falls on the food bank, because there is one.
Pretty much the only way I see this working out is if we criminalize speculative vacancies, outright ban luxury construction, and also start building Krushchevkas in all feasible climate zones in the Americas at the rate of several million per year, to keep up with immigration and the coming climate/economic/political refugees.
Profit in housing and housing as a wealth tool has to be muzzled fiercely, or we're gonna eat shit.
The last time we let it get this bad, a lot of people kissed the inside of a basket.
The cost of living crisis is so bad, people are using what was designed to be an occasional additional food supplement as a regular food source.
We simply did not build up our infrastructure when we should. Instead, we went lean and JIT to save a few bucks. Now, with the age of abundance ending, we find that we need the very things we never bothered to invest in when times were good.
SS: Related to collapse as Canada’s food bank system is starting to collapse under the pressure of increased demand coming from the inflation/cost of living crisis. Around 40 percent of users are disabled or on other fixed income systems that have not kept up with the cost of living, and one in five users have regular jobs. As of last March (2024) the number of users had increased by 90 percent from 2019, nearly doubling. If increased government help doesn’t come soon, the system could well collapse. A mixture of reduced yields from climate change upping prices, corporate greed, and maybe too high immigration levels in Canada compared to the nation’s capacity have combined to create this crisis that is forcing many into food bank usage.
This submission statement is misleading. Immigration levels were not mentioned at all in the article.
"What’s driving the increased need?
Inflation and the cost of living. Forty per cent of people we serve rely on social assistance programs like Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program. Ontario Works rates haven’t kept up with rising rents or food costs. (For example, the average rent in Ottawa exceeds $2,000, while Ontario Works provides less than $800 monthly.) Many of our visitors are also dealing with episodic illnesses or mental health issues and are forced to make difficult choices between buying medicine and food."
A strict ecologist would say, "But that is normal and to be expected when resources are limited. They should have known better". A tree-hugging ecologist retorts, "What? Are you nuts? It is us in that ecosystem." A bit of tusseling shocks some bystanders with some perplexed, but all realize there are many perspectives that cause infighting and inaction.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Portalrules123:
SS: Related to collapse as Canada’s food bank system is starting to collapse under the pressure of increased demand coming from the inflation/cost of living crisis. Around 40 percent of users are disabled or on other fixed income systems that have not kept up with the cost of living, and one in five users have regular jobs. As of last March (2024) the number of users had increased by 90 percent from 2019, nearly doubling. If increased government help doesn’t come soon, the system could well collapse. A mixture of reduced yields from climate change upping prices, corporate greed, and maybe too high immigration levels in Canada compared to the nation’s capacity have combined to create this crisis that is forcing many into food bank usage.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1i13mw8/why_are_canadas_food_banks_collapsing/m72wb7e/
MaxFourr@reddit
the middle class is disappearing so fast and can't afford to make contributions to it! we can barely afford groceries for ourselves as it is. it is a huge error to expect society-supported food banks to be the social safety net for canada when we're just two grocery corporations in a trenchcoat
lifeisbeansiamfart@reddit
Truedue has caused that entire country to be on the brink of collapse
npcknapsack@reddit
Dude, what Trudeau did to earn the ire of a large portion of Canadians was a weak-ass vaccine mandate and telling people to wear masks. Everything comes back to Covid. Most Canadians were decently happy with him, even after Covid hit. It wasn't until the inflation hit— and that was global, not limited to Canada.
lifeisbeansiamfart@reddit
I have family in Toronto.
Their GDP is lowest in western nation, wages are almost the lowest in Western nation, no one can afford housing without roommates and 3 jobs, they spiked their immigration far more than the infrastructure could handle.
RustyMetabee@reddit
Why are wages so low? Because corpoartions will go with immigrants over Canadians because they're more likely to take the low wage and not complain.
Why can no one afford housing? Because corporations are buying up the market and overinflating prices, while landlords set outrageous rents and do the bare minimum to maintain the property.
Why did they increase immigration? To create a cheap workforce for corporations.
Trudeau isn't the enemy; corporations are.
LongTimeChinaTime@reddit
That’s the thing about prolific migration, you have the most tenacious, relentless and ambitious cut of people from far away, who have zero ability to feel pain, and they will come and gain access to the bounty of the West.
These traits have been long since bred out of native westerners, and any westerners who do have those genes well the genes are dormant due to decades of coasting on the wave of the peak of our flourishing.
lifeisbeansiamfart@reddit
TIL corporations are the Prime Minister of Canada and set the increased immigration quotas.
I also learned that corporations didn't exist until Truedue was in office in order to sabatoge him.
Conscious_Drive3591@reddit
The fact that food banks across Canada are collapsing is heartbreaking, but it’s not surprising given the state of the economy. When you see stats like a 90% increase in food bank visits since 2019, with even full-time workers relying on them, it’s clear that this isn’t about budgeting or personal failings, it’s systemic. People are being squeezed on all sides by skyrocketing grocery prices, unaffordable housing, and stagnant wages.
What’s especially upsetting is that food banks, which were meant to be emergency stopgaps, are now a cornerstone of the social safety net. And they’re buckling under the weight. The Ottawa Food Bank doubling its operating budget in five years, yet still struggling to meet demand, shows just how much the government is failing to address the root causes of poverty. It’s great that food banks provide additional services, like referrals to employment or mental health supports, but they shouldn’t have to. The CEO is right: “Charity exists when policy doesn’t.” We need real solutions, like raising social assistance rates, increasing the minimum wage, and tackling inflation at its core. Otherwise, we’re just throwing Band-Aids on a growing wound.
LongTimeChinaTime@reddit
I can acknowledge that in the U.S., wages are perhaps throttled below increases in national productivity, and there is room to increase them without automatic inflation in theory.
But in reality, me thinks that mental health and resource scarcity or even just poor distribution of resources and overcomplicated global interconnection is what is behind increasing difficulty in accessing or affording food.
JHandey2021@reddit
The simplest answer is "because too many people need them". We should absolutely then ask "why do so many people need them", but let's not lose sight of that simple insight.
We are living in a time where people increasingly can't afford the food they need to survive. And it's very likely to get worse. One of the scariest concepts that it took me a long time to internalize - and I still haven't completely - is that of lag times. We want to imagine that we can change in an instant, that a bill or an invention or a protest will flick a switch and all is well. But problems don't appear out of thin air, not even black swans. And by the time all the trends and reasons converge to result in a visible issue of too many people needing food from food banks, you're not likely to solve the problem by a mere reallocation of a little bit of tax revenue. You'll simply push it somewhere else, like toothpaste in a tube.
luv2block@reddit
In Canada, if you work for the gov (a lot do) or have a strong union (teachers, cops, nurses, etc.), or are in the natural resource sector (specifically oil and gas)... you're keeping up with inflation and them some.
Everyone else, is fuckaroo'd and basically drowning under inflation.
But the grocers don't have to reduce prices, because the first group of people are able to pay more. The second group of people end up at the food bank.
LongTimeChinaTime@reddit
In Canada groceries are basically held for ransom by 2 or 3 conglomerates.
Canada long held the reputation of being more social and civilized than the U.S., but in reality, the same scarcity and economic structures exist there as the US so it doesn’t matter ppl still are hard up.
People in the U.S. still think socializing healthcare will fix everything here and maybe sure huge bills for a minor hospital stay will go away but then you will have trouble accessing care in a different way
deinoswyrd@reddit
That's not true. I work fed and my wages haven't moved since 2019.
luv2block@reddit
But you still have good wages and a guaranteed retirement package. The gov workers are the best paid with the best job security in the country.
deinoswyrd@reddit
I actually make significantly less than private! I just can't make the move because I have disability protections with my seniority.
4ourkids@reddit
We’re watching collapse in real-time all around us with climate change driving up the price of groceries, causing mental health problems, spreading wildfires, and causing political upheaval. Each year will be progressively worse than the last. Fun times.
Centrista_Tecnocrata@reddit
Yet, people keep having kids, even collapse aware people.
ba00862@reddit
It's why we are choosing not to have any ourselves. Feels incredibly selfish to bring a new life into a world that feels like it's teetering on the edge.
SpeakerOfMyMind@reddit
I'm 27, my whole life all I wanted was to have my own family. People always disagree with me, and tell me "you never know." No, I do fucking know.
I have a whole list of reasons, I find it immoral at this point. Better yet, I don't like this world, how could I bring a being into a world I already hate? Because I'm selfish? The world has enough selfishness in it already. I hate that people can't at least at the bare minimum understand where I'm coming from. It wasn't an easy decision to come to, it has been years in the process of thinking, meanwhile these people just wonder what they'll watch for TV tonight.
lavapig_love@reddit
Adopt. There's a lot of already-born kids who desperately want a loving and reliable parent. Not need, WANT.
JHandey2021@reddit
25 years ago, in pretty much any political discussion on the Internet, you could reliably expect someone to pipe in with a comment that hemp would fix everything, and I mean everything. You could even call it "Chong's Law", a distant cousin to Godwin's Law.
I wonder if the reflexive comments about having children I've seen on pretty much any discussion about climate (not just here, to be sure) could fall into the same category - gratuitous asides that add nothing to the conversation but do serve to alienate anyone who is not already part of the in-group (not to mention faint echoes of the eugenicism and racism that hovered around the edges of population discussions before the World Wide Web).
PaPerm24@reddit
The overuse of the word eugenics is REALLY starting to annoy me. Every time it is used i actually become more open to the idea of it.
DiscountExtra2376@reddit
I've been in the sustainable population circle for nearly my entire life and those who understand for what it is, never bring up race or eugenics. It's an ecological concept where the human species is consuming faster than what the planet can regenerate. A lot of people tend to focus on the consumption part only -- probably trying to avoid being called a racist. That shows they don't understand this concept either because nature isn't regenerating more resources because it's happier when a certain race reproduces. There's just too many, consuming too much, way too fast. And with our current population, no lifestyle is sustainable.
Centrista_Tecnocrata@reddit
You can report the racist comments when/if they are made, but trying to shut down discussions and topics before a single racist comment show up because "it can happen" make it look like the person is not worried about racism at all and is just using it as a tool against the overpopulation subject.
Zestyclose-Ad-9420@reddit
dont you think the scale in difference between using hemp and having children is enough to make it not the same category?
Alexandertheape@reddit
r/antinatalism. not everyone
gangofminotaurs@reddit
First thought: how do you come to that idea when going full tilt in the other direction?
Second thought: i do think food banks will be a thing of the past in 2050.
rearendcrag@reddit
Third thought: how do you reconcile ~40% avoidable food waste in Canada (2023) with food banks collapsing?
SalaryIllustrious988@reddit
capitalism.. you cant sell food if you're giving it away for free.
krichuvisz@reddit
Like in the people are starving by then?
SidKafizz@reddit
Most of us will be gone by then.
Shoddy-Childhood-511@reddit
We've seemingly passed peak food production between 2012 and 2018, so now hunger increases 0.5% per year. It'll slowly accelerate since climate change drives this.
Of course, overpopulation is a major factor here, even rich countries with declining populations have an overpopulation problem.
m0loch@reddit
Whew, finally something that isn't faster than expected.
a_dance_with_fire@reddit
…until there’s breadbasket failures
The_Weekend_Baker@reddit
With Trudeau on the way out, the conservative candidate for PM (whoever that ends up being) will say, "I will bring down costs. I will make sure every Canadian has enough to eat. I will make Canada great again!" And people will vote for that candidate in greater numbers than the liberal candidate, and things will get worse.
izzidora@reddit
Yeah it's that wanker Pierre and it'll probably be by a landslide. We have greatly greatly underestimated how stupid and selfish most people are and I have zero faith in my fellow Canadians at this point to actually vote in their best interests.
boogsey@reddit
Buckle up. Conservative government is going to bend the working class over.
izzidora@reddit
I'm already stocking up on beans and rice 😭
Gotzvon@reddit
It's Pierre Poilievre, if you are curious. And he's absolutely taking his cues from what's happening south of the border. And the Conservatives will most likely win a majority government in the upcoming election (you don't vote for the Prime Minister in Canada, unless you happen to live in the riding in which they are running).
The_Weekend_Baker@reddit
I hate being right.
Just googled him, and saw an article on The Guardian yesterday that I missed. Holy shit.
PeanutTraditional568@reddit
It's so frustrating reading comments from people that probably don't even know well their domestic political reality, state some total non-sense about other countries political reality.
Logical-Race8871@reddit
We keep setting terrifying records at our local food bank across the border, as well. It's a problem spanning North America, particularly where housing is most expensive. A lot of talk about food prices, and that is true, but what's driving food insecurity has much more to do with rising housing costs and availability at lower incomes.
60 million plus North Americans have to choose which parts of the bottom rung of Maslow's to sacrifice first. There's functionally no housing bank, so it all falls on the food bank, because there is one.
Pretty much the only way I see this working out is if we criminalize speculative vacancies, outright ban luxury construction, and also start building Krushchevkas in all feasible climate zones in the Americas at the rate of several million per year, to keep up with immigration and the coming climate/economic/political refugees.
Profit in housing and housing as a wealth tool has to be muzzled fiercely, or we're gonna eat shit.
The last time we let it get this bad, a lot of people kissed the inside of a basket.
Deguilded@reddit
Must be the immigrants! j/k
The cost of living crisis is so bad, people are using what was designed to be an occasional additional food supplement as a regular food source.
We simply did not build up our infrastructure when we should. Instead, we went lean and JIT to save a few bucks. Now, with the age of abundance ending, we find that we need the very things we never bothered to invest in when times were good.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
There are people arguing it is the immigrants.
Deguilded@reddit
I knew some would be dumb enough to do so.... hence the pre-emptive joke.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
So glad to see your country has the same fools as mine. :\
Barbarake@reddit
This is a misleading submission statement. Nowhere in the article are immigration levels mentioned at all.
Portalrules123@reddit (OP)
SS: Related to collapse as Canada’s food bank system is starting to collapse under the pressure of increased demand coming from the inflation/cost of living crisis. Around 40 percent of users are disabled or on other fixed income systems that have not kept up with the cost of living, and one in five users have regular jobs. As of last March (2024) the number of users had increased by 90 percent from 2019, nearly doubling. If increased government help doesn’t come soon, the system could well collapse. A mixture of reduced yields from climate change upping prices, corporate greed, and maybe too high immigration levels in Canada compared to the nation’s capacity have combined to create this crisis that is forcing many into food bank usage.
Barbarake@reddit
This submission statement is misleading. Immigration levels were not mentioned at all in the article.
"What’s driving the increased need?
Inflation and the cost of living. Forty per cent of people we serve rely on social assistance programs like Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program. Ontario Works rates haven’t kept up with rising rents or food costs. (For example, the average rent in Ottawa exceeds $2,000, while Ontario Works provides less than $800 monthly.) Many of our visitors are also dealing with episodic illnesses or mental health issues and are forced to make difficult choices between buying medicine and food."
Collapsosaur@reddit
A strict ecologist would say, "But that is normal and to be expected when resources are limited. They should have known better". A tree-hugging ecologist retorts, "What? Are you nuts? It is us in that ecosystem." A bit of tusseling shocks some bystanders with some perplexed, but all realize there are many perspectives that cause infighting and inaction.
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Portalrules123:
SS: Related to collapse as Canada’s food bank system is starting to collapse under the pressure of increased demand coming from the inflation/cost of living crisis. Around 40 percent of users are disabled or on other fixed income systems that have not kept up with the cost of living, and one in five users have regular jobs. As of last March (2024) the number of users had increased by 90 percent from 2019, nearly doubling. If increased government help doesn’t come soon, the system could well collapse. A mixture of reduced yields from climate change upping prices, corporate greed, and maybe too high immigration levels in Canada compared to the nation’s capacity have combined to create this crisis that is forcing many into food bank usage.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1i13mw8/why_are_canadas_food_banks_collapsing/m72wb7e/
OGSyedIsEverywhere@reddit
If you like big picture explanations, it's really down to the stuff described in this link.