As we welcome the festive season, it is crucial to address a growing concern in our communities. While the holidays traditionally see an increase in food bank usage, this year presents an unprecedented challenge. Minister, today’s Feed Ontario report highlights a distressing reality: a significant rise in food bank use across Ontario—an increase of over 38% from last year. This is double the increase Ontario saw during the 2008 recession.

In Niagara, organizations like Community Care, Salvation Army, and the local churches run our food banks. They are an incredible force for good, yet they face immense strain due to systemic issues beyond the holiday spike. The root causes—chronic income insecurity, precarious employment, and a dire shortage of affordable housing—all demand our immediate attention.

This crisis calls for more than seasonal generosity. It requires concrete action from the government of Ontario. We should be leading by example, showing compassion at this time of the year, providing emergency assistance for food banks that are ringing the alarm bells. In order to get there, it will require a bridge, and the province holds the purse strings.

Minister, it is time to seriously look at emergency assistance for food banks.

As we move towards the new year, let us embrace a vision of hope and resilience.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of the wonderful people from Feed Ontario. There’s a copy of their most recent report, Hunger Report 2023: Why Ontarians Can’t Get Ahead, on each member’s desk. The members I’d like to welcome are Carolyn Stewart, Ashley Quan, Adelaide Wimpenny, Kirstin Beardsley, Neil Hetherington, Kimberley Wilhelm, Meghan Nicholls, Christine Lind, Vanessa Glasby, Brendan Carlin, June Muir, Lynda Davidson, Rachael Wilson, Radhika Subramanyan, Benjamin Earle, Ryan Noble, Connor Evans Davis, and Andrea Waters. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

My question is to the Premier. Feed Ontario released their 2023 Hunger Report on food bank use. Every MPP has a copy on their desk. Food banks in Ontario have doubled their use since the pandemic, with six million visitors over the last year. Two thirds were first-time visitors, signalling that things are getting much worse for Ontarians. Yet this government wants to keep people in poverty. During a cost-of-living crisis, the minister won’t even back off from a cruel social assistance clawback, and food banks warned us today they’re on the brink of collapse—on the brink of collapse.

To the Premier: Will you act now to save Ontarians from legislated poverty and increase ODSP and OW?