By the Numbers: Food insecurity, poverty and hunger in Canada

Toronto – August 9, 2013 – The definition of "food insecurity" is inadequate or insecure access to food because of a lack of money to buy enough food to properly feed yourself or ypur family.

The impact of food insecurity is very apparent to the about 1.6 million Canadian households where hunger defines their daily reality. With the growing inequality gap between the rich and the rest of us, the problem of food insecurity is growing according to a new report* based on data from Statistics Canada.

The data was collected from 60,000 respondents who were asked 18 questions, ranging from: whether they and their families ever worried about running out of food; to whether they had gone a full day without eating; to how often did the children go hungry because there wasn’t enough money for food?

• 3.9 million         Number of individuals in Canada experiencing food insecurity.

• 1.1 million         Number of children in Canada (one in six) living in a home where people reported struggling to put food on the table.

• 11.3%               Percentage of Canadian households experiencing food insecurity in 2008.

• 12.3%               Percentage of Canadian households experiencing food insecurity in 2011.

• 450,000             Increase since 2008 in number of Canadians experiencing food insecurity.

• 35%                  Percentage of Canadian households with a lone female parent experiencing food insecurity.

• 5.7%                 Percentage of households where children sometimes go a day without eating because of food insecurity.

• 36%                  Percentage of households in Nunavut that are food insecure; the highest prevalence of food insecurity in Canada.

• 10.6%               Percentage of households in Newfoundland and Labrador that are food insecure; the lowest prevalence of food insecurity in Canada.

• 1.3 million         Total number of food insecure households in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. Altogether, these four provinces accounted for 85% of food insecure households in Canada.

• 75%                  Percentage of severely food insecure households which reported missing meals some days, and at the most extreme, going day(s) without food.

*Source: Tarasuk, V., Mitchell, A., Dachner, N. Research to identify policy options to reduce food insecurity (PROOF). (2013). Household food insecurity in Canada 2011.