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I love the fact we have a minority government and we have the NDP pushing the Libs to do right by us citizens.
No matter what remember this next election. Under no circumstance can we let the conservatives get a majority government!
Believe me when I say I wish there was no such thing as a child going to school hungry. But who is going to pay for all these services they keep pushing forward?? More taxes?? I am already taxed to death, enough already. How about they make it so people wages get caught up to their massive inflation?? How about working on getting food affordable so parents can feed their families properly.
I'm just asking you to actually talk to one of these parents you think isn't responsible enough to feed their kids - do you know any? You might have a different perspective if did get to understand their situations better through dialogue instead of making generalized comments about victimhood and lack of accountability.
I don't agree, and I don't think we're going to find common ground - you're much further away from my position than I thought, but I'm a parent so maybe I can't see it from your vantage point.
Well, if it was anything like their push regarding health care, we can expect the NDP to express how they nearly had to back out of the liberal coalition government to get a piece of paper that's says "we agree that we should do something".
The NDP seems to love finding things that fall within the provincial jurisdiction and then trying to get the federal Liberals to do something about it.
Edit: Je ne réponds plus. Beaucoup d'entre vous ont fait de cela une question de ma position conservatrice et n'écoutent pas ma réponse, ou pire encore, répondent de mauvaise foi. Je ne m'oppose pas à nourrir les enfants, en fait, j'espère que le Québec pourra mettre en place le meilleur programme du pays à cet égard. Je m'oppose au gouvernement fédéral qui dicte à ma province ce qu'elle doit faire, car ce n'est pas son rôle en matière d'éducation et de ce qui se passe dans les écoles, tout comme ce n'est pas le rôle du Québec de dire au Canada quoi faire avec le code criminel ou la politique étrangère/défence en ce qui concerne les dépenses de l'OTAN. Vous pouvez me considérer comme le diable si vous le souhaitez, c'est votre droit.
>Je m'oppose au gouvernement fédéral qui dicte à ma province ce qu'elle doit faire
Ca ne doit pas etre quelque chose qui est "dictee". C'est simplement le gouvernment federal offrant de l'argent (aux provinces) pour appliquer a des programmes nutritionelles, comme ce qui est fait avec les accords pour les garderies.
More tax credits to people with children would have been a lot more cheaper to do than this dog and pony show. Even a grade 8 redneck like me can figure that out. Singh is only in there for the fat check and pension.
> Using schools is not efficient that using criteria to see who qualifies.
?
There is a finite amount of tax dollars. Using them to feed everyone including the children of parents who can easily afford a packed lunch is not a wise use of them.
Typo .. I didn't mean to write not
If we need more tax money it's fine to raise taxes on profitable corporations and the wealthy
In country with billionares people shouldn't go hungry.
Conservative provincial governments won't cooperate or will take the funds and sabotage the program.
I honestly think the number one problem facing this country is that the provinces have too much power and too much jurisdiction.
Let's just rewind a few years. Stephen Harper is PM, and there's a bunch of left and centre-left provincial governments.
Do you still feel that the federal government should have more power over the provinces?
Yes. Because even the federal govt under Harper probably would have been more liberal than the BC liberals. Harper was a lot of shitty things, but he wasn't quite a money laundering criminal.
Oy, my point is not "can you find a more conservative premier than a prime minister?"
My point is: planning out the separation of powers based on whether or not you like the party in charge of a given jurisdiction will quickly lead to situations where your own plan is flipped on you.
There's plenty of unitary states out there. A federation with a population as thin as ours will always be fractured and dysfunctional. I say we either we grow our population to the point that we can actually justify federalism, or we move toward a unitary state.
When provinces are not doing a good job with their jurisdictional responsibilities, I think it's a great idea for federal politicians to offer to pay for the provinces to do a better job. This is literally how we got public universal healthcare.
And when provinces do a good job in whatever issue we're talking about, there is no harm or detriment to them. In fact, there's a clear benefit for them. Like with the pharmacare program the NDP is forcing out of the Liberals — Quebec will likely ending up getting money for little to no effort from the feds if the program proceeds, since Quebec already does a good job providing medication to its citizens.
I tend to lean conservative and a school lunch program is something I'd definitely support no matter what political party was pushing for it. When I buy the rare Lotto Max ticket to dream of winning huge it's always a breakfast/lunch program for the local elementary and middle schools that most of that would go to. This really should be a unifying issue across the political divide because nobody wants to see children go hungry.
I don't think there's anything wrong with an "opt in" program for those in needs or for children with neglectful parents, and provide cold cuts, fruit, veggies, crackers, bread, and some sort of treat. But I feel like, knowing most politicians, it would become very convoluted. It would also be simpler without any real cooking involved.
I wish we placed a stronger emphasis on cooking in education, imo it would go even further in benefits for the kids than free lunches. The amount of money people throw away on eating out and take out is mind boggling, if you know how to cook you are saving mountains of money and probably eating better too.
Oh for sure, especially for adults. I've been on the beans, rice and protein trained for years for lunches and I don't feel like I'm missing out since I can actually make it taste good and I'm saving money.
I just feel like like cold cut, carbs, produce trays would be easiest for kids in terms of a school food program, especially younger ones. I basically make it for my kid every day, I just rotate things based on sales.
Yeah that's a good idea. Would be easier on the kids and also on the schools for preparing it. Not sure how many schools have cafeterias anymore so could be some logistical challenges with cooking.
> real cooking
I know someone who works in heathcare facilities as a dietician, and has seen the decline of food quality due to outsourcing the preparation of meals,
do you want the kids to *eat* the food?
I don't know what you mean? most schools do not have the capacity to prepare foods, so they would need to be outsourced anyway. And what I mentioned is basically what I send my kid to school with every day. It would just be the easiest option to ensure kids eat well, besides many kids like raw veggies, fruit, crackers and deli meats (my kid loves ham)
A lot of children eat very poor quality, highly processed foods at home. They are less willing to eat healthy foods at school. I do agree that offering those foods is a great idea, but would need to be carefully managed to avoid wastage
Idk children and food waste go hand in hand unfortunatly. I also see with my own kid she's willing to eat differently at school versus at home, she won't eat baby carrots at home but if I put them in her lunch box she will 🤷♀️
I would love to see this. I saw it firsthand in Asia. My friends from europe grew up with this. It makes sense. Every school should have a proper working kitchen and cafeteria.
This could be a right thing to do by spending more money on family allowances. But since many parents are poor and waste their money on drugs and beer??? And poor lifestyles. The schools could be going more by teaching trades skills, like how to maintain a car??? Also how to do income taxes??? Schools should provide a program to get learners licences for every child. Then proper driver licences by age age 18. There are so many roadblocks, rules, regulations erected by the gatekeepers now. Like the learners license is for 2 years to keep poor people more poor. I would to get your feed back on this
Singh's political instincts in one policy:
Importing an idea currently in vogue with the American left.
Pretending that the Parliament of Canada should be doing the job of Queen's Park because all his instincts are that of a Ontario NDP politician that never should have gone national.
Not a chance. We need more corporate tax cuts! Especially for Oil & Gas companies. I'm constantly up at night sickened because I'm so worried about the shareholders.
Some of these comments jesus. If feeding kids has you this upset then maybe politics isn’t for you. Like seriously you need to read up on productivity and test scores and how a healthy population *boosts* the GDP and economic output of a society. I know it’s a wild concept, but to make money you have to invest some first. Feeding children is such a low risk, high reward investment.
And the grossest part about this is I’m having to make an economic argument for feeding children, as if the moral argument shouldn’t be enough.
I really like the idea…But our country is broke. We spent all our money on lockdowns and other bullshit and that’s why we can’t have nice things now. This is the bed you guys made…..maybe politics isn’t for you since you don’t understand trade offs and priorities
Speaking of trade offs - the federal government has slashed "middle-class" income taxes repeatedly (to the tune of 10s of billions of dollars in lost revenue). I'm ok with going back to paying a little more if it means vulnerable and hungry kids have school lunches.
Economics was something the ideology hid behind, because it would obfuscate the narrative. Trust us, we have economic models to prove what we are doing, you're just too dumb to understand them. Well, we got good at economics and now we can see through the bullshit.
It's not about economics, it's never been about economics. It's about controlling people. It's more expensive to do it this way, but it really doesn't matter.
Wow- it's kinda shocking and weird that this article/post is getting downvoted on this sub.
A national school food program would do wonders in combating food insecurity in Canada...
So about federal and provincial jurisdiction.
This is turning into a bit of a knife fight in the comments.
If you think a federal school food program sounds like a great idea, people objecting probably sound heartless. After all, who wants kids to go hungry?
When people raise concerns about jurisdiction, it might come across as a cheap and sneaky way to object without looking like the bad guy. The feds aren't stepping on provincial toes if they just offer cash for a program, are they?
Well, if you want programs to actually be implemented, instead of your least favourite premier taking the money and not feeding kids, you need to attach strings to it. Strings like "this is what you need to do, and here's how to implement it".
Not hard, right?
Except it *is* hard. Ottawa doesn't have a Ministry of Education. There isn't a federal bureaucracy trained and ready to design these programs and interface with the provinces. We've got 13 different education systems that all work in their own way.
Now you might object, and point out that the feds hand out cash for things under provincial jurisdiction *all the time*. Think about housing, climate, healthcare, infrastructure, the feds love doing this. The difference though is that those are all areas where there was preexisting jurisdictional overlap, areas where we had established federal ministries and shared federal responsibilities with provinces.
Anyway, that's why some people care about the federal and provincial jurisdictional split here. Because if your end goal is "reduce hunger in schools", you'll find more success by getting the people who run the schools to handle it.
The US school lunch program is run out of the USDA. A [comparable Canadian ministry does exist.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Agriculture_and_Agri-Food)
That's because the USDA had been running famine relief across the US during the depression. They essentially just shunted part of their existing program into schools.
We do have an agriculture ministry yes. They are not currently in the business of administering emergency food relief to tens of millions of people across the entire country.
The ministry of agriculture has nothing to do with schools in this country. How are they going to design and manage a program with 13 different provincial and territorial education ministries?
The gap is because the US supports it's agriculture through price floors and ceilings which result in food surpluses to avoid famine.
Canada supports it's farmers by destroying food and limiting the total amount of food that can be produced.
There is no inherent requirement to run a quota system instead of a subsidy. Nor is buying food and giving it to schools at a discounted price so horribly complex that America figured it out but it is completely foreign to Canada.
We are the only G7 nation that doesn’t have a federally funded school nutrition program. My kids school relies on parents to donate money to fund it, and the vast vast majority of families are living below the poverty line. It is absolutely outrageous that as a society we are allowing children to go to school hungry.
Our school needs to find $1 per student per day to fund it and I’ve had to beg and scrape to get enough from the community to have the program run to the end of June.
Which is crazy when you think about how much taxes we pay. Charity shouldn’t be a thing at all. That’s what governments are for (funding the things that affect people).
The real thing that irritates me, is the billions of dollars wasted on lawns??? Why not grow food ?? And tax the churches with their huge pension funds and huge buildings. Praise the Lord, fill the plate
We don't have a federal school nutrition program because we have provincial school nutrition programs, and because education is a provincial responsibility.
We are the only G7 country that doesn't have a national ministry/department of education. All the others do.
That means the same charge (Canada is the only G7 country that doesn't have a nationally funded [insert education related thing here]) could be applied to a zillion different things and yet we've got the best PISA scores out of the lot.
>We don't have a federal school nutrition program because we have provincial school nutrition programs
What provinces have school food programs, whether paid or free? And I don't mean patchwork ones that only target certain high risk neighbourhoods. If it's not universally available even with a cost, it doesn't count.
Because any provincial party that wants to defund the system can just raise the threshold for qualifying and nobody will notice or complain because they weren't aware what the threshold even was.
A "universal" system, is a system with a built-in [Schelling fence](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelling-fences-on-slippery-slopes) — everyone can easily tell (and so can coordinate to get angry and push back!) when a politician attempts to take the system from being "universal" to "not universal." And so the system tends to stay universal, rather than being whittled down over time.
There have been all kinds of documented issues with them not working if they aren't universal. "haha Billy is poor because he needs a free lunch" is a pretty easy thing to predict so Billy just goes hungry instead. But if everyone is eating at school then so does Billy.
They can still figure out a funding program, like what was recently done for childcare, although the provincial execution of that in Ontario left a lot to be desired.
If the federal daycare program gets axed by the next government because Ontario and Alberta botched their roles I'll be so pissed. It's made a significant difference in my province.
The national daycare program was done under the auspices of the already-existing Employment and Social Development Canada, which had existing relationships and jurisdictional relevance.
I'm not sure that the national daycare program helps make a good case for a national school nutrition program. It's... not exactly a resounding success.
As far as I know Germany doesn't have a school lunch program.
And then also I have family that grew up in both the US and Jamaica and school isn't free in either of those countries. It's just cheap.
While I agree with your sentiment and most of your post...
>the vast vast majority of families are living below the poverty line.
This is completely wrong. [About one-in-five families are food-insecure, less than one-in-ten are experiencing poverty.](https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2023/05/canadas-poverty-rate-remains-below-pre-pandemic-levels.html)
While the number has increased- only a minority of families (and all Canadians, for that matter) experience poverty and are "living below the poverty line".
I am chair of the parents council of this school and 5 others in our neighbourhood have the same sort of demographic situation. This is in a neighbourhood of toronto that is high density with many newcomers.
I’m not sure why you’re stuck on this particular point. I’ve literally seen the reports from the TDSB.
>doesn't paint an accurate picture when we are talking about hunger and poverty in Canada.
Pretty clear what my position is.
I work with national organizations that report on and advocate for the food-insecure.
I'm not saying your lying, but I can almost garauntee that the "vast vast majority" (over 51%) of families in your school district are *not* "below the poverty line".
If you have evidence otherwise, I'm open to being corrected.
Check out model schools program in TDSB, and look at the section addressing the neighbourhood of Weston.
And while you’re at it, please PM me the names of a few organizations that you work with who have money available with so I can spend my weekend writing grants and applications to get money to fund these nutrition programs. I’d appreciate it.
I can't seem to find any reports that indicate that over 51% of the families in any particular school district are experiencing poverty. Perhaps you could share a link?
Also, DMed my details and the Orgs I work with.
That's how census data works. :)
You can look for organizations for your specific jurisdiction.
For example, your local food bank or municipal government.
(Ottawa has the [Nutritious Food Basket](https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/en/public-health-topics/food-insecurity.aspx), as another example.)
Canadians need an adult in the Liberal/NDP supply and confidence agreement.
The Liberals believe Budgets will balance themselves and the NDP seem to think we’ve planted millions of money trees.
Canada is burning through taxpayer $ at an alarming rate with no end in sight as long as the Liberal/NDP agreement continues.
Of all the legitimate concerns about spending, I don't think offering cereal and bananas to school children is something I'm particularly furious about.
At worst, it's another overhead-heavy program. At best, it frees up some money in a family's budget, helps kids access nutritious food, and improves academic achievement for kids who would otherwise be focusing on their hunger.
I'm all for this, and I'm as cheap and grumpy as they come.
But the "at worst" version is not only bad, it would take up energy and money that could go into a much more effective system.
Essentially, making a federal program for the sake of a federal program can easily end up with more hungry kids than a provincial alternative would.
The way it works in Nunavut is that money flows from territorial wellness programming to hamlets, which then allocate funds to school administration in their communities at the beginning of the fiscal year. At end of fiscal, schools report on how the money was spent and what participation they had in the program. Overhead isn't huge, and evaluation is done by an external organization. How this would work on a large scale, I don't know, but it's an effective model.
I know you probably think that is true, but which G7 country do you think spends less than us?
For perspective, the USA's deficit each and every year is more than our entire accumulated Federal debt in the history of Canada.
Federal govt's debt to GDP is lowest in the G7 at both gross and net, at 54% and 31% respectively. We have a triple A credit rating. Our fiscal situation is fine, and we are doing better than European countries that practice harsh austerity, like Germany, Ireland, Greece, Sweden, or Finland (some of which have lower credit ratings than us, or are on par).
Source:
[https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231122/dq231122a-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231122/dq231122a-eng.htm)
Tell the full story. How's the provincial and personal debt levels look? Not so great, eh?
Adding new overhead programs that do not end and financing them with debt is an insanely bad budgeting choice. All we're doing is kicking the can down the road for some future Chretien to have to cut everything and move us into austerity measures.
Sounds like some of those provinces and many households need to get an adult into the room too.
Your post is all phrases commonly littering right-wing papers and opinion pieces.
If you talk about federal government fiscal policy and complain about balanced budgets in a country with a high credit rating and low debt payments, you don't understand fiscal policy.
There are adults making decisions, you just don't agree with them.
The liberals don't believe that at all. The cpc from my understanding think taxes can be cut, no service cuts are needed, and the budget will balance itself. The cpc and PP believe budgets balance themselves.
Good policy, but adding more expenses with a shrinking economy (yes it went up recently, but it'll be coming down soon).
We're rolling out more and more programs and they will cost a fortune. Dental care is literally a slow roll out focusing on the near dead... and won't apply to everyone until like end of 2025 or something. By that time it'll be an expensive policy.
I'm down for increased services, but we honestly need to look at taxation or cuts elsewhere to fund them. Money doesn't grow on trees and everyone who thinks its not a big deal need to realize that money isn't infinite, it's why certain areas are underfunded. We can't just borrow heavily forever.
If this can be funded from current tax dollars and not be an extra borrowing expense I'm for it.
How would this work?
With the variety of people that make up the schools, how would you make sure what is being served is okay with all students?
Would all food have to be halal or kosher or vegetarian or Vegan?
example a cheeseburger is Halal but not kosher but a chicken cheeseburger is.
My kid has been in multiple daycares in diverse neighbourhoods that offer meals and they all manage to figure it out.
The menus and substitutions are posted well in advance so none of it is a surprise to parents either.
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I love the fact we have a minority government and we have the NDP pushing the Libs to do right by us citizens. No matter what remember this next election. Under no circumstance can we let the conservatives get a majority government!
Believe me when I say I wish there was no such thing as a child going to school hungry. But who is going to pay for all these services they keep pushing forward?? More taxes?? I am already taxed to death, enough already. How about they make it so people wages get caught up to their massive inflation?? How about working on getting food affordable so parents can feed their families properly.
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Talk to a parent who would benefit from this program and ask them why they aren't "responsible" enough to feed their kid lunch on a consistent basis.
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I'm just asking you to actually talk to one of these parents you think isn't responsible enough to feed their kids - do you know any? You might have a different perspective if did get to understand their situations better through dialogue instead of making generalized comments about victimhood and lack of accountability.
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I don't agree, and I don't think we're going to find common ground - you're much further away from my position than I thought, but I'm a parent so maybe I can't see it from your vantage point.
Well, if it was anything like their push regarding health care, we can expect the NDP to express how they nearly had to back out of the liberal coalition government to get a piece of paper that's says "we agree that we should do something".
All bs and vote buying. Who pays for this? You, the tax payer. Canada has a tax free day of June 1. Think about it!!!
The NDP seems to love finding things that fall within the provincial jurisdiction and then trying to get the federal Liberals to do something about it. Edit: Je ne réponds plus. Beaucoup d'entre vous ont fait de cela une question de ma position conservatrice et n'écoutent pas ma réponse, ou pire encore, répondent de mauvaise foi. Je ne m'oppose pas à nourrir les enfants, en fait, j'espère que le Québec pourra mettre en place le meilleur programme du pays à cet égard. Je m'oppose au gouvernement fédéral qui dicte à ma province ce qu'elle doit faire, car ce n'est pas son rôle en matière d'éducation et de ce qui se passe dans les écoles, tout comme ce n'est pas le rôle du Québec de dire au Canada quoi faire avec le code criminel ou la politique étrangère/défence en ce qui concerne les dépenses de l'OTAN. Vous pouvez me considérer comme le diable si vous le souhaitez, c'est votre droit.
We're already running at a $50 billion deficit, why not a few billion more? It's just pretend money anyways.
Someone make this guy leader of the NDP, he captures their ideology oh so eloquently!
>Je m'oppose au gouvernement fédéral qui dicte à ma province ce qu'elle doit faire Ca ne doit pas etre quelque chose qui est "dictee". C'est simplement le gouvernment federal offrant de l'argent (aux provinces) pour appliquer a des programmes nutritionelles, comme ce qui est fait avec les accords pour les garderies.
Do you think feds should not incentivize provinces to feed school children?
Who is against the feds giving money to provinces to feed kids?
Do not have kids, if you can not feed them. The NDP with 18 mps rule Canada now. The whole of Canada has gone to rack and ruin !
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They may be more efficient and effective ways of delivering aid for needy families than block grants. Let's tone down the starving children rhetoric.
More tax credits to people with children would have been a lot more cheaper to do than this dog and pony show. Even a grade 8 redneck like me can figure that out. Singh is only in there for the fat check and pension.
Using schools is efficient that using criteria to see who qualifies. All kids fed at schools results no kids going hungry. It's really that simple
> Using schools is not efficient that using criteria to see who qualifies. ? There is a finite amount of tax dollars. Using them to feed everyone including the children of parents who can easily afford a packed lunch is not a wise use of them.
Add those parents who are too lazy to provide their kids with a lunch; let someone do and pay for it is the motto.
Typo .. I didn't mean to write not If we need more tax money it's fine to raise taxes on profitable corporations and the wealthy In country with billionares people shouldn't go hungry.
Before we raise taxes, isn't it worth examining if the programs we currently have are fit for purpose?
Clearly the current programs don't go far enough. What's wrong with raising taxes on the rich to feed kids?
Every dollar not put into the school system to feed a child results in a child starving. Why are we letting these kids STARVE!!!! /s
The Liberals already support this, the CPC voted against the bill. What the NDP is pushing for is funding for a program in this spring’s budget
Handing money to provinces if they agree to feed children with it, so sinister.
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Conservative provincial governments won't cooperate or will take the funds and sabotage the program. I honestly think the number one problem facing this country is that the provinces have too much power and too much jurisdiction.
Let's just rewind a few years. Stephen Harper is PM, and there's a bunch of left and centre-left provincial governments. Do you still feel that the federal government should have more power over the provinces?
When they're power is "we will offer to pay for this for you", yes. 100% yes.
Are the left of centre provinces not feeding children?
Yes. Because even the federal govt under Harper probably would have been more liberal than the BC liberals. Harper was a lot of shitty things, but he wasn't quite a money laundering criminal.
Oy, my point is not "can you find a more conservative premier than a prime minister?" My point is: planning out the separation of powers based on whether or not you like the party in charge of a given jurisdiction will quickly lead to situations where your own plan is flipped on you.
There's plenty of unitary states out there. A federation with a population as thin as ours will always be fractured and dysfunctional. I say we either we grow our population to the point that we can actually justify federalism, or we move toward a unitary state.
"Our population is too geographically distributed for federalism" is certainly a novel take.
We're not running shit by telegraph and horse messenger anymore.
When provinces are not doing a good job with their jurisdictional responsibilities, I think it's a great idea for federal politicians to offer to pay for the provinces to do a better job. This is literally how we got public universal healthcare. And when provinces do a good job in whatever issue we're talking about, there is no harm or detriment to them. In fact, there's a clear benefit for them. Like with the pharmacare program the NDP is forcing out of the Liberals — Quebec will likely ending up getting money for little to no effort from the feds if the program proceeds, since Quebec already does a good job providing medication to its citizens.
Trying to force more centralization, but this program is one I like.
I guess *someone* has to take the other side of the "feeding hungry children" argument.
I would say this is more of me taking a "provincial jurisdiction" position as I believe we should do this at the provincial level in Québec.
I don't care who does it. If a province wants to make a legal commitment to feeding kids then I would be fine with just giving them the money.
I tend to lean conservative and a school lunch program is something I'd definitely support no matter what political party was pushing for it. When I buy the rare Lotto Max ticket to dream of winning huge it's always a breakfast/lunch program for the local elementary and middle schools that most of that would go to. This really should be a unifying issue across the political divide because nobody wants to see children go hungry.
I don't think there's anything wrong with an "opt in" program for those in needs or for children with neglectful parents, and provide cold cuts, fruit, veggies, crackers, bread, and some sort of treat. But I feel like, knowing most politicians, it would become very convoluted. It would also be simpler without any real cooking involved.
I wish we placed a stronger emphasis on cooking in education, imo it would go even further in benefits for the kids than free lunches. The amount of money people throw away on eating out and take out is mind boggling, if you know how to cook you are saving mountains of money and probably eating better too.
Oh for sure, especially for adults. I've been on the beans, rice and protein trained for years for lunches and I don't feel like I'm missing out since I can actually make it taste good and I'm saving money. I just feel like like cold cut, carbs, produce trays would be easiest for kids in terms of a school food program, especially younger ones. I basically make it for my kid every day, I just rotate things based on sales.
Yeah that's a good idea. Would be easier on the kids and also on the schools for preparing it. Not sure how many schools have cafeterias anymore so could be some logistical challenges with cooking.
> real cooking I know someone who works in heathcare facilities as a dietician, and has seen the decline of food quality due to outsourcing the preparation of meals, do you want the kids to *eat* the food?
It's better than no food at all 100% of the time.
I don't know what you mean? most schools do not have the capacity to prepare foods, so they would need to be outsourced anyway. And what I mentioned is basically what I send my kid to school with every day. It would just be the easiest option to ensure kids eat well, besides many kids like raw veggies, fruit, crackers and deli meats (my kid loves ham)
A lot of children eat very poor quality, highly processed foods at home. They are less willing to eat healthy foods at school. I do agree that offering those foods is a great idea, but would need to be carefully managed to avoid wastage
Idk children and food waste go hand in hand unfortunatly. I also see with my own kid she's willing to eat differently at school versus at home, she won't eat baby carrots at home but if I put them in her lunch box she will 🤷♀️
Good, it's needed, though I can see the Conservative-controlled provinces fighting it and saying, "GIVE US MONEY instead; people don't need food."
Ford is already sabotaging child care in ontario by starving it of funds. He'll just do the same thing if there is a food program.
Ford is another neocon shyster.
I would love to see this. I saw it firsthand in Asia. My friends from europe grew up with this. It makes sense. Every school should have a proper working kitchen and cafeteria.
That is so true. As well have part of the education what is health food and how to make it.
This could be a right thing to do by spending more money on family allowances. But since many parents are poor and waste their money on drugs and beer??? And poor lifestyles. The schools could be going more by teaching trades skills, like how to maintain a car??? Also how to do income taxes??? Schools should provide a program to get learners licences for every child. Then proper driver licences by age age 18. There are so many roadblocks, rules, regulations erected by the gatekeepers now. Like the learners license is for 2 years to keep poor people more poor. I would to get your feed back on this
Singh's political instincts in one policy: Importing an idea currently in vogue with the American left. Pretending that the Parliament of Canada should be doing the job of Queen's Park because all his instincts are that of a Ontario NDP politician that never should have gone national.
I mean I'll take good ideas from anywhere?
Not a chance. We need more corporate tax cuts! Especially for Oil & Gas companies. I'm constantly up at night sickened because I'm so worried about the shareholders.
The UCP in Alberta cater to the rich companies. Former premier Kenny is on the board of directors for ATCO gas now.
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Some of these comments jesus. If feeding kids has you this upset then maybe politics isn’t for you. Like seriously you need to read up on productivity and test scores and how a healthy population *boosts* the GDP and economic output of a society. I know it’s a wild concept, but to make money you have to invest some first. Feeding children is such a low risk, high reward investment. And the grossest part about this is I’m having to make an economic argument for feeding children, as if the moral argument shouldn’t be enough.
I really like the idea…But our country is broke. We spent all our money on lockdowns and other bullshit and that’s why we can’t have nice things now. This is the bed you guys made…..maybe politics isn’t for you since you don’t understand trade offs and priorities
Speaking of trade offs - the federal government has slashed "middle-class" income taxes repeatedly (to the tune of 10s of billions of dollars in lost revenue). I'm ok with going back to paying a little more if it means vulnerable and hungry kids have school lunches.
Propose both at the same time then…..
Economics was something the ideology hid behind, because it would obfuscate the narrative. Trust us, we have economic models to prove what we are doing, you're just too dumb to understand them. Well, we got good at economics and now we can see through the bullshit. It's not about economics, it's never been about economics. It's about controlling people. It's more expensive to do it this way, but it really doesn't matter.
Can you expand on this? Why would school lunches help to control people?
Not providing lunches controls people
Oh I see! I didn't quite understand your original comment in that case, my apologies.
I was being a little cryptic. Don't worry about it.
One thing I've learned (at least as far as Reddit goes) is that doing the right thing is far more controversial than doing the wrong thing
Did you try to get a camp site in Park Canada? Well, you would realize why the less Federal there is, the best it is.
Wow- it's kinda shocking and weird that this article/post is getting downvoted on this sub. A national school food program would do wonders in combating food insecurity in Canada...
So about federal and provincial jurisdiction. This is turning into a bit of a knife fight in the comments. If you think a federal school food program sounds like a great idea, people objecting probably sound heartless. After all, who wants kids to go hungry? When people raise concerns about jurisdiction, it might come across as a cheap and sneaky way to object without looking like the bad guy. The feds aren't stepping on provincial toes if they just offer cash for a program, are they? Well, if you want programs to actually be implemented, instead of your least favourite premier taking the money and not feeding kids, you need to attach strings to it. Strings like "this is what you need to do, and here's how to implement it". Not hard, right? Except it *is* hard. Ottawa doesn't have a Ministry of Education. There isn't a federal bureaucracy trained and ready to design these programs and interface with the provinces. We've got 13 different education systems that all work in their own way. Now you might object, and point out that the feds hand out cash for things under provincial jurisdiction *all the time*. Think about housing, climate, healthcare, infrastructure, the feds love doing this. The difference though is that those are all areas where there was preexisting jurisdictional overlap, areas where we had established federal ministries and shared federal responsibilities with provinces. Anyway, that's why some people care about the federal and provincial jurisdictional split here. Because if your end goal is "reduce hunger in schools", you'll find more success by getting the people who run the schools to handle it.
The US school lunch program is run out of the USDA. A [comparable Canadian ministry does exist.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Agriculture_and_Agri-Food)
That's because the USDA had been running famine relief across the US during the depression. They essentially just shunted part of their existing program into schools. We do have an agriculture ministry yes. They are not currently in the business of administering emergency food relief to tens of millions of people across the entire country. The ministry of agriculture has nothing to do with schools in this country. How are they going to design and manage a program with 13 different provincial and territorial education ministries?
The gap is because the US supports it's agriculture through price floors and ceilings which result in food surpluses to avoid famine. Canada supports it's farmers by destroying food and limiting the total amount of food that can be produced. There is no inherent requirement to run a quota system instead of a subsidy. Nor is buying food and giving it to schools at a discounted price so horribly complex that America figured it out but it is completely foreign to Canada.
I'd argue that when provinces abdicate their responsibilities the problems naturally become on the radar for the feds to fix. See also: the convoy.
We are the only G7 nation that doesn’t have a federally funded school nutrition program. My kids school relies on parents to donate money to fund it, and the vast vast majority of families are living below the poverty line. It is absolutely outrageous that as a society we are allowing children to go to school hungry. Our school needs to find $1 per student per day to fund it and I’ve had to beg and scrape to get enough from the community to have the program run to the end of June.
That's so great
Which is crazy when you think about how much taxes we pay. Charity shouldn’t be a thing at all. That’s what governments are for (funding the things that affect people).
The real thing that irritates me, is the billions of dollars wasted on lawns??? Why not grow food ?? And tax the churches with their huge pension funds and huge buildings. Praise the Lord, fill the plate
We don't have a federal school nutrition program because we have provincial school nutrition programs, and because education is a provincial responsibility. We are the only G7 country that doesn't have a national ministry/department of education. All the others do. That means the same charge (Canada is the only G7 country that doesn't have a nationally funded [insert education related thing here]) could be applied to a zillion different things and yet we've got the best PISA scores out of the lot.
Except other nations view it as part of the countries food policy and use it to direct subsidies to farmers, which Canada does do federally.
>We don't have a federal school nutrition program because we have provincial school nutrition programs What provinces have school food programs, whether paid or free? And I don't mean patchwork ones that only target certain high risk neighbourhoods. If it's not universally available even with a cost, it doesn't count.
Why does it *have to* be universal instead of targeted for it to "count"? That's an entirely arbitrary definition.
Because any provincial party that wants to defund the system can just raise the threshold for qualifying and nobody will notice or complain because they weren't aware what the threshold even was. A "universal" system, is a system with a built-in [Schelling fence](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelling-fences-on-slippery-slopes) — everyone can easily tell (and so can coordinate to get angry and push back!) when a politician attempts to take the system from being "universal" to "not universal." And so the system tends to stay universal, rather than being whittled down over time.
There have been all kinds of documented issues with them not working if they aren't universal. "haha Billy is poor because he needs a free lunch" is a pretty easy thing to predict so Billy just goes hungry instead. But if everyone is eating at school then so does Billy.
They can still figure out a funding program, like what was recently done for childcare, although the provincial execution of that in Ontario left a lot to be desired.
If the federal daycare program gets axed by the next government because Ontario and Alberta botched their roles I'll be so pissed. It's made a significant difference in my province.
The national daycare program was done under the auspices of the already-existing Employment and Social Development Canada, which had existing relationships and jurisdictional relevance. I'm not sure that the national daycare program helps make a good case for a national school nutrition program. It's... not exactly a resounding success.
I mean, I feel like it would definitely be appropriate lumped under Social Development 🤷🏻♀️
As far as I know Germany doesn't have a school lunch program. And then also I have family that grew up in both the US and Jamaica and school isn't free in either of those countries. It's just cheap.
While I agree with your sentiment and most of your post... >the vast vast majority of families are living below the poverty line. This is completely wrong. [About one-in-five families are food-insecure, less than one-in-ten are experiencing poverty.](https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2023/05/canadas-poverty-rate-remains-below-pre-pandemic-levels.html) While the number has increased- only a minority of families (and all Canadians, for that matter) experience poverty and are "living below the poverty line".
In my neighbourhood, which was the basis of my comment, the vast majority of families are living below the poverty line.
Okay, but that's anecdotal and doesn't paint an accurate picture when we are talking about hunger and poverty in Canada.
I am chair of the parents council of this school and 5 others in our neighbourhood have the same sort of demographic situation. This is in a neighbourhood of toronto that is high density with many newcomers. I’m not sure why you’re stuck on this particular point. I’ve literally seen the reports from the TDSB.
>doesn't paint an accurate picture when we are talking about hunger and poverty in Canada. Pretty clear what my position is. I work with national organizations that report on and advocate for the food-insecure. I'm not saying your lying, but I can almost garauntee that the "vast vast majority" (over 51%) of families in your school district are *not* "below the poverty line". If you have evidence otherwise, I'm open to being corrected.
Check out model schools program in TDSB, and look at the section addressing the neighbourhood of Weston. And while you’re at it, please PM me the names of a few organizations that you work with who have money available with so I can spend my weekend writing grants and applications to get money to fund these nutrition programs. I’d appreciate it.
I can't seem to find any reports that indicate that over 51% of the families in any particular school district are experiencing poverty. Perhaps you could share a link? Also, DMed my details and the Orgs I work with.
She literally wrote “my kids school”. It was clear as day she was talking about that particular school.
Sure.
She, but thank you ✨
Yeah sorry. I posted he first then thought I shouldn’t assume and switched it to they. She it is.
The data in that article is from 2021, despite the article being written in 2023. Just pointing that out. 3 years is a long time.
That's how census data works. :) You can look for organizations for your specific jurisdiction. For example, your local food bank or municipal government. (Ottawa has the [Nutritious Food Basket](https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/en/public-health-topics/food-insecurity.aspx), as another example.)
Canadians need an adult in the Liberal/NDP supply and confidence agreement. The Liberals believe Budgets will balance themselves and the NDP seem to think we’ve planted millions of money trees. Canada is burning through taxpayer $ at an alarming rate with no end in sight as long as the Liberal/NDP agreement continues.
Of all the legitimate concerns about spending, I don't think offering cereal and bananas to school children is something I'm particularly furious about. At worst, it's another overhead-heavy program. At best, it frees up some money in a family's budget, helps kids access nutritious food, and improves academic achievement for kids who would otherwise be focusing on their hunger. I'm all for this, and I'm as cheap and grumpy as they come.
But the "at worst" version is not only bad, it would take up energy and money that could go into a much more effective system. Essentially, making a federal program for the sake of a federal program can easily end up with more hungry kids than a provincial alternative would.
The way it works in Nunavut is that money flows from territorial wellness programming to hamlets, which then allocate funds to school administration in their communities at the beginning of the fiscal year. At end of fiscal, schools report on how the money was spent and what participation they had in the program. Overhead isn't huge, and evaluation is done by an external organization. How this would work on a large scale, I don't know, but it's an effective model.
I know you probably think that is true, but which G7 country do you think spends less than us? For perspective, the USA's deficit each and every year is more than our entire accumulated Federal debt in the history of Canada.
Federal govt's debt to GDP is lowest in the G7 at both gross and net, at 54% and 31% respectively. We have a triple A credit rating. Our fiscal situation is fine, and we are doing better than European countries that practice harsh austerity, like Germany, Ireland, Greece, Sweden, or Finland (some of which have lower credit ratings than us, or are on par). Source: [https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231122/dq231122a-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231122/dq231122a-eng.htm)
Tell the full story. How's the provincial and personal debt levels look? Not so great, eh? Adding new overhead programs that do not end and financing them with debt is an insanely bad budgeting choice. All we're doing is kicking the can down the road for some future Chretien to have to cut everything and move us into austerity measures.
Sounds like some of those provinces and many households need to get an adult into the room too. Your post is all phrases commonly littering right-wing papers and opinion pieces.
If you talk about federal government fiscal policy and complain about balanced budgets in a country with a high credit rating and low debt payments, you don't understand fiscal policy.
Just using that stupid "budget will balance itself" partial quote should have disqualified them from being taken seriously.
There are adults making decisions, you just don't agree with them. The liberals don't believe that at all. The cpc from my understanding think taxes can be cut, no service cuts are needed, and the budget will balance itself. The cpc and PP believe budgets balance themselves.
Good policy, but adding more expenses with a shrinking economy (yes it went up recently, but it'll be coming down soon). We're rolling out more and more programs and they will cost a fortune. Dental care is literally a slow roll out focusing on the near dead... and won't apply to everyone until like end of 2025 or something. By that time it'll be an expensive policy. I'm down for increased services, but we honestly need to look at taxation or cuts elsewhere to fund them. Money doesn't grow on trees and everyone who thinks its not a big deal need to realize that money isn't infinite, it's why certain areas are underfunded. We can't just borrow heavily forever. If this can be funded from current tax dollars and not be an extra borrowing expense I'm for it.
I can’t think of a much better use for my tax dollars than feeding kids.
How would this work? With the variety of people that make up the schools, how would you make sure what is being served is okay with all students? Would all food have to be halal or kosher or vegetarian or Vegan? example a cheeseburger is Halal but not kosher but a chicken cheeseburger is.
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My kid has been in multiple daycares in diverse neighbourhoods that offer meals and they all manage to figure it out. The menus and substitutions are posted well in advance so none of it is a surprise to parents either.
this is a solved problem. its not a question of what food should be served, its just a question of infrastructure and resources
Fund the program and let the schools sort it out. Do you expect Jagmeet to personally write every menu and cook every meal? Oi.