Canada's Food Bank Crisis: Record 2 Million Monthly Visits as Working Canadians Struggle to Afford Groceries

In March 2024, Canadian food banks recorded 2,059,636 visits – a number that would fill every seat in the country's NHL arenas nearly 12 times over. Yet behind that statistic lies a more troubling shift: nearly one in five users now has a job. Five years earlier, in 2019, the comparable figure was one in eight. By March 2025, monthly visits had surged to 2,165,776 – a 99% increase since 2019, according to the Food Banks Canada HungerCount 2025 report.

A Ninety-Nine Percent Surge in Five Years

The sheer scale of the increase is unprecedented. Monthly food bank visits jumped 90% between March 2019 and March 2024, as documented in the HungerCount 2024 report. The following year brought another 5% increase, pushing the total to 2.17 million visits per month.

Children now account for one-third of all visits – roughly 715,000 child visits each month, up 300,000 from five years ago. “Need for food banks in Canada is spiralling out of control,” said Kirstin Beardsley, CEO of Food Banks Canada, in a press release accompanying the 2024 report. “These numbers are a warning sign that our social safety net is failing.” The 2025 report shows the trend continuing. “We are seeing a sustained crisis,” Beardsley told CTV News. “Food banks were never designed to handle this level of demand.”

The Working Poor: Nearly One in Five Food Bank Users Has a Job

Perhaps the most alarming shift is the composition of food bank clients. In 2019, 12% of users were employed. By 2025, that figure had risen to 19.4% – nearly one in five, according to the HungerCount 2025 report.

“This is not a story about people who aren’t working,” said Beardsley in the CTV News report. “It’s about people who are working but still can’t afford the basics.” That phenomenon is reshaping public perception. The working poor – once a term applied to low-wage, precarious workers – now includes people in full-time jobs. The HungerCount 2025 report notes that food bank use among people with post-secondary education has also increased, up 35% from 2019.

Why Jobs No Longer Keep Hunger at Bay

The root causes are well-documented. Grocery prices have soared, with food inflation running well above overall inflation for much of the past two years. Housing costs – both rents and mortgage payments – have absorbed an increasing share of household incomes. “We are seeing families who are working full-time but spending more than half their income on housing,” said Neil Hetherington, CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto, in an interview with CBC News. “The math simply doesn’t work anymore.” According to the HungerCount 2024 report, 68% of food bank clients identified housing costs as a primary reason for needing food assistance. Another 55% cited the cost of food. “Wages have not kept pace with the cost of living,” Beardsley said in the press release. “Even people with good jobs are one paycheque away from needing help.”

Food Banks Buckling: One-Third Turn People Away

The surge in demand is pushing food banks to their limits. A February 2024 report from Second Harvest found that more than one-third of food charities in Canada were forced to turn people away. Of those that remained open, 30% said they ran out of food regularly, according to the Food Banks Canada press release.

“We have never seen this level of desperation,” said Hetherington in the CBC News article. “People are making impossible choices between paying rent and buying food.” The Second Harvest report estimated that demand could rise an additional 18% in 2024, a prediction that has held as the 2025 numbers show continued growth. Food banks are scrambling to secure donations and funding, but many are operating in crisis mode.

Toronto: One in Ten Relying on Food Banks

Nowhere is the crisis more acute than in Toronto. According to CBC News, one in ten Toronto residents now relies on a food bank. That is nearly double the rate of five years ago. “We are serving 350,000 people a month,” said Hetherington. “That is up from about 60,000 a month a decade ago. This is not sustainable.”

The HungerCount 2024 report notes that Ontario had the highest number of food bank visits of any province, with Toronto driving much of the demand. The city’s high housing costs and stagnant social assistance rates are often cited as contributing factors. “Every day we see new faces,” said a volunteer at a Toronto food bank quoted in the CBC News article. “They are ashamed to be here. They never thought they would need this.”

What Needs to Change

Advocates are calling for systemic policy changes. The Food Banks Canada press release urges governments to increase income supports, build more affordable housing, and strengthen the social safety net. “Food banks are a band-aid on a deep wound,” Beardsley said in the CTV News report. “Without immediate policy action, the situation will only get worse.” The federal government has touted its grocery rebate and National School Food Program, but critics argue these measures fall short. “We need a comprehensive strategy that addresses the root causes of poverty,” Hetherington told CBC News. “Not just more food banks.” As the 2025 numbers show, the crisis shows no sign of abating. The question for policymakers is whether to continue with temporary fixes or to finally invest in the structural changes that could prevent millions of Canadians from needing emergency food assistance in the first place. It is a question that, for the nearly one in five food bank users with a job, cannot be answered soon enough.