The Breakfast Club of Canada is hopeful the Liberal government will follow through on a campaign promise and create a national food program for students faced with food insecurity.
Daniel Germain, Breakfast Club of Canada founder and National School Food Program Advisory Committee Chair, says funding could be on the way, as the re-elected Trudeau government promised a five-year billion-dollar investment.
“A re-elected Liberal government will work with our provincial, territorial, municipal, Indigenous partners, and stakeholders to develop a National School Food Policy and work towards a national school nutritious meal program with a $1 billion investment over five years,” states the Liberal Party of Canada platform, which formed a minority government in September.
“I’ve spent my life–almost 30 years–to develop the national food program with Breakfast Club of Canada to make sure that every kid from coast, to coast, to coast would have access,” explained Germain.
Germain explains, now more than ever, there’s a dire need for the assistance this program provides, especially among those parents or guardians who are either experiencing or are on the cusp of poverty.
“Just (The) Breakfast Club of Canada is feeding more than 400,000 kids every day,” he said, adding our country is the only one in the G7 that doesn’t have a program like this.
“When we were young, most of our parents told us that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. If the government does what it’s supposed to do, we could end up in Canada with one of the best national school food programs in the world.”
One-in-three Canadian children are at risk of going to school hungry–almost two million children every single day.
This number has jumped from the one-in-five that it was prior to the pandemic.
