Edmonton cabinet minister outlines federal plans to address food security, affordability

Edmonton's Food bank says a new federal benefit for low and moderate earners is badly needed.

An Edmonton Liberal cabinet minister visited the city’s food bank on Friday to talk about recent funding announcements made by Ottawa that pledge to help low-income consumers pay for groceries and develop long-term strategies to secure food supplies.

Eleanor Olszewski, the federal minister of emergency management and community resilience and minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada, said Friday during her visit to Edmonton’s Food Bank that her government is not only providing relief in terms of paying for food and other essentials, it’s also developing a long-term strategy to address affordability.

“We understand that making some changes in terms of the groceries and essentials benefit isn’t going to solve the food insecurity issue such as it is,” Olszewski, the MP for Edmonton Centre, told reporters at the food bank’s headquarters. “It’s going to take a lot of other steps along the way, and that’s why what we announced is a suite of measures.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney revealed plans for the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit on Monday. It’s a 25-per-cent increase to the GST credit over the next five years to help lower-income consumers pay for groceries.

If it’s passed in Parliament, the federal government says it will also issue a one-time payment in the spring worth 50 per cent of the credit.

Ottawa said a family of four that would qualify for the benefit will receive up to $1,890 this year and about $1,400 annually for the next four years. A single person would get up to $950 this year and about $700 for the next four years.

The existing GST credit is paid out quarterly. More than 12 million Canadians, including 1.3 million in Alberta, are expected to be eligible for the new benefit.

Ottawa also announced several measures totalling $650 million to help businesses pay for supply-chain disruptions without passing costs on to consumers. The federal government will also give $20 million to its local food bank infrastructure fund to support food banks.

The longer-term plans are ones Marjorie Bencz, the executive director of Edmonton’s Food Bank, hopes will reduce the need for help from an organization such as hers.

“What’s really exciting about this announcement today is it’s putting money directly into low-income people’s hands so they can make their own choices and participate actively in our communities,” Bencz said. “The next thing is the broader investment to deal with some of these tougher things to move, like ensuring that we do have more local production and that we have the capacity to feed our own communities from the wonderful farmers and producers that we have..”