Vancouver council unanimously votes to re-instate funding for school meal program

Vancouver city councillors unanimously passed a motion Wednesday to restore an annual fund to help the city's school board provide student meals.

City councillors unanimously approved a motion Wednesday to re-instate funding for the Vancouver School Board to provide meals to students in need.

The motion, put forward by councillors Rebecca Bligh and Pete Fry, brings back $325,000 in annual support for the school meal program, until the VSB can secure alternative funding.

The city previously announced it would reduce the funding to $162,500 due to budget pressures, and because of additional support coming from the B.C. government.

“We had sort of been told by staff that we were going to sunset that funding because there was new funding coming in,” explained Fry. “We then learned that that funding would be insufficient to meet the needs.”

The VSB learned in April that the anticipated funding allocations would be “substantially reduced based on a provincial formula socioeconomic status index,” according to the motion.

Bligh and Fry’s motion also requires Mayor Ken Sim to push both the provincial and federal governments to step up, something he said he fully supports.

“The city stepped up in the past when, you know, senior levels of government didn’t deal with their accountability – because it is a senior-level government accountability,” said Sim.

The reversal was celebrated by school board trustees, who were alarmed when the city reduced the program’s funding.

“Of course, it’s never enough,” said board chair Victoria Jung, speaking outside council chambers Wednesday.

“The goal is universal food, universal food for all – and so we’ll continue to ask for more funding, and to advocate for students and K-12 education in Vancouver.”

Sim said there are funding gaps in the province, with students in Vancouver receiving less than those in Surrey.

He said he’ll be asking the province to address those concerns and to provide full transparency in how funding is distributed across B.C.’s 60 school districts.

“We are asking the province to be a little, you know, transparent in the sense that – show us how you allocate the funding, show us the formula, and then, you know, address any inequities because at the end of the day we are dealing with vulnerable families,” the mayor said.

Sim also said the Vancouver School Board never raised concerns about the city’s funding cut when it was first notified, which he called “disappointing.”

“They had months to bring this forward during the city’s budget process,” he said.

Bligh said she’s happy all councillors are on board with re-instating the funding.

“I am really grateful for the cross-partisan support on this issue,” she said. “Universality around the school food program is the ultimate goal.”

The city has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to the VSB annually in support of various food programs since 2014, serving 3,500 meals to students each day.