Under its national school food program, Ottawa promises to spend $1 billion over five years to feed as many as 400,000 kids annually who are currently not in a food program at school. Education Assistant Jack Pensom cuts baguettes into smaller slices for students at Woodroffe High School in Ottawa, on May 7, 2023.Spencer Colby/The Globe and Mail
Nearly a year after it was first announced in the federal budget, Canada now has a national school food program. Until this week, it has been the only G7 country without one.
Every territory and province has signed the deal, with Alberta being the last province to join the program when it signed its deal earlier this week.
Under the program, the federal government promises to spend $1-billion over five years to feed as many as 400,000 kids annually who are currently not in a food program at school.
“I cannot understate the impact that this will have on kids, parents, and teachers across the country. This program is so much more than just putting food on plates, it’s about setting up our kids for success, so they can reach their full potential, no matter where they live,” Jenna Sudds, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development said in a statement.
The federal funding falls well short of what would be needed to create a universal school food program, but researchers and advocates say it is a crucial first step that will have important benefits for the children and families it serves.
Studies have shown that participation in school food programs increases students’ attendance and academic performance. It improves students’ mental and physical health, and has even been shown to increase lifetime earnings compared to those who don’t participate in such a program.
“This is probably one of the most important things that we can do for a whole generation,” says Debbie Field, national co-ordinator for the Coalition for Healthy School Food, a non-profit organization. “We know that those countries who have invested in universal school food programs show outcomes at the educational and health level that are fabulous.”
With U.S.-imposed tariffs on Canadian goods threatening to make the affordability crisis even worse for many families in Canada, the program promises significant savings.
The federal government estimates that a family with two children participating in the program will save an average of $800 a year on groceries.
“For families who need a little extra help, it’s a game changer,” Ms. Sudds said.
The federal funding is also a great help to programs that have been struggling with the rising costs of food, Ms. Field says.
“It helps those programs that were running out of money because the cost of food was going up,” she says.
It will also help to create many more school food programs.
Only 52 per cent of schools in Canada had a government-funded school food program as of the 2023 school year, according to research conducted by Amberley Ruetz, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan. Only 25 per cent of students in JK to grade 12 participated in a school food program.
Demand for school food programs has been growing since the COVID pandemic, says Judith Barry, co-founder and government relations director at Breakfast Club of Canada, which provides free breakfasts to students across the country.
“We can’t meet the real demand of those existing programs, and we know that many other schools are in need of implementing quality programming,” she says.
There are currently more than 800,000 students in nearly 3,000 schools in Canada who need the organization’s support but lack the necessary funding, Ms. Barry says.
The number of Canadians who are food insecure reached 16.9 per cent in 2022, up from 12.9 per cent the year before, according to the most recent data from Statistics Canada.
Food prices rose 19.1 per cent from 2018 to 2022, according to the agency.
A national school food program will not only help many families that are facing an affordability crisis, but more importantly, improve children’s well-being, Dr. Ruetz says.
“This next generation has been projected to not live as long as our parents because of chronic disease, like things that can be changed through diet,” she says.
She points to over-access to highly processed foods, as well as chemicals and microplastics in foods, as examples.
“We can help reverse that through school meals,” she says.
Many school food programs consist of teachers or parent volunteers preparing some food or putting together snacks, says Rachel Engler-Stringer, a professor of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan.
“We’re going to start to be able to develop school food systems in Canada, which we have never really had before,” she says.
The funding will allow schools to pay for staff who are trained as cooks and trained in food service to provide healthier meals for children. That might include hot meals with a main dish with a focus on fruits and vegetables, she says.
“Kids across Canada really do not eat very well during the school day,” Prof. Engler-Stringer says. “This is the beginning of a transformation of school food systems in Canada.”