The NDP party said they plan to pressure the Trudeau government to include funding for a national school food program in its next federal budget.
The government’s next federal budget is scheduled for April 16 and according to the NDP, the Liberals appear open to the possibility.
The Trudeau government held a series of roundtable discussions with parents, teachers and children about implementing a national school food policy in 2022.
The NDP formed a supply-and-confidence pact with the Liberals following the 2021 election, promising to support the party on key parliamentary votes until 2025, which includes the upcoming budget in exchange for NDP priorities like a national pharmacare plan.
British Columbia already has a provincially funded food program in place under David Eby’s NDP government, which provides meals to students daily.
B.C. committed $214 million in 2022 over the next three years to expand the existing food program, giving the province’s 60 school districts a minimum of $350,000 per year for school lunches.
Project coordinator for the Coalition for Healthy School Food Samantha Gambling said that while the provincial funding is a great help, it can be stressful acquiring the remaining balance from donors.
“It’s not enough to feed all of B.C.’s school students three meals every day, but it’s a really great start towards what we hope to see, is a universal school food program,” said Gambling in an interview with CityNews last fall. “This investment will, ideally, cover 20% of students who are in need of food at school.”
“We are advocating for $1 billion over five years in the next federal budget announcement, starting with $200 million in 2024 budget … for the entire country. Again, that is not enough to feed all students every day, but it’s a really important start,” said Gambling.
According to Gambling, the $214 million pledged is far below what’s needed to fund student meals provincewide.
“Even if the provincial government gave $5 per meal, per student, to all school districts, which is a huge amount of money, they wouldn’t be able to feed every student, every day because the systems and the infrastructure and the staffing is not in place, so this really does need to be a step-by-step process and we want to see steady progress.”
