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<\/p>\nAt a volunteer event at its headquarters on Saturday, over one hundred people, including Premier Doug Ford and Toronto\u2019s mayor, Olivia Chow, rolled up their sleeves to sort through giant bins of donations to prepare foodstuffs for distribution across Daily Bread\u2019s network. <\/p>\n
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Ford addressed the crowd and thanked volunteers for their efforts, saying his government is focused on finding good paying jobs for everyone in Ontario to address food insecurity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foundation of everything in our province, absolutely everything \u2013 from healthcare, (to) education, (to) infrastructure, (to) supporting food banks \u2013 is one thing, it\u2019s called the economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But for some, employment isn\u2019t even enough to avoid the food bank. <\/p>\n
One of Daily Bread\u2019s employees, Augustina Michael, said she uses the food bank about once a month to afford fresh vegetables, even though she makes over minimum wage at her job. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven as someone that has a job, it\u2019s actually not enough,\u201d she said. \u201cBefore your paycheck comes in, you already have expenses. You\u2019ve got to pay rent, you\u2019ve got to pay your phone bills, transportation and all that. You\u2019re left with little or nothing to fall back on for food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daily Bread said there have been over 920,000 visits to member food banks since the year started, surpassing the number of visits seen at this time last year.<\/p>\n
Hetherington said rising gas prices impact the economy as a whole, and he\u2019s expecting food costs to rise along with it as everyone from urban workers to rural farmers and food producers feel the pinch at the gas pump. <\/p>\n
While that could drive even higher demand at food banks, Hetherington said Daily Bread has already seen a real, direct impact to its operations due to the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Just last month, a vessel carrying a shipment of rice for the Daily Bread Food Bank was struck near Iran, delaying the arrival of the much-needed food, Hetherington said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just come on top of hit after hit,\u201d Hetherington said of the impacts of the Iran war. \u201cYou had a massive rise in rents (and) you had incomes that weren\u2019t keeping pace with (the cost of living).\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the pandemic \u2026 we saw 60,000 client visits per month. The number last month was 330,000,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
To meet rising demand for its services, Hetherington said Daily Bread has had to ramp up its fundraising efforts and rely on the generosity of private donors. <\/p>\n
In Daily Bread\u2019s latest annual report, the food bank said about 46 per cent of food bank users are employed or have someone in their household who is employed. <\/p>\n
Hetherington said, despite the added pressure of the Iran war, the long-term solution for Ontario\u2019s rising food bank usage is for governments to step up affordable housing efforts, noting that some of the food bank\u2019s clients are spending 100 per cent of their income on housing. <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2026. <\/p>\n
Kathryn Mannie, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a volunteer event at its headquarters on Saturday, over one hundred people, including Premier Doug Ford and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,2465,2466,82,3302],"class_list":{"0":"post-583448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-central-vancouver-island","12":"tag-nanaimo","13":"tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","14":"tag-nanaimo-news","15":"tag-nanaimo-news-now","16":"tag-nanaimonewsnow","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-oceanside","19":"tag-parksville","20":"tag-qualicum","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}