Progress on the Right to Food
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At Food First NL, our mission is to “Advance everyone’s right to food in Newfoundland and Labrador.”
The right to food isn’t just a phrase. It’s a defined concept, written into international agreements which Canada has signed. It is not, however, a human right written into provincial human rights legislation. Meaning you can’t pursue a right-to-food case with the Human Rights Commission.
“... the right to food is the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access—either directly or by means of financial purchases— to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear.”
— United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food
The United Nations’ definition highlights an important point: food isn’t just about calories. It’s about meaning, dignity, and fulfillment in our lives.
The Right to Food in 2024
So, what did 2024 bring for the right to food in Newfoundland and Labrador?
Worsening Food Insecurity and a Worrisome Increase in Hunger
Data on food insecurity has a one-year lag, so in 2024 we got numbers from 2023. They showed that food insecurity continues to rise in the province. Just about 1 in 4 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians (26%) live in a food-insecure household, up from 22.9% a year before. That said, we are no longer the most food-insecure province in Canada. Although food insecurity rates went up across Canada, they went up more slowly in Newfoundland and Labrador. These days, that gets counted as a (small) win.
Unfortunately, the story is very different when you look just at severe food insecurity (or, in plain language, hunger). Newfoundland and Labrador’s rate of severe food insecurity jumped by 56%. One out of every 11 NLers now lives in a severely food insecure household, the highest rate of any province in Canada.
If this trend continues, we’ll need to take a hard look at the effectiveness of the province’s poverty reduction efforts. Many of those recently-announced efforts target the lowest-income households, so we should see some improvements in severe food insecurity in particular.
A Continuing Food Price Crisis
This year, food prices didn’t increase as much as in recent years but were still at crisis levels. Once again, there is a one-year lag on these numbers, so we got the 2023 food price data. We saw an average increase of 8% in food prices across the province, well ahead of overall CPI inflation at 3.9%. That means even if someone’s pay was pegged to inflation, they lost ground on their food budget.
It seems very likely this crisis will continue for the foreseeable future. This is no longer a pandemic supply chain issue. Instead, it reflects the global nature of our food system. Faraway conflicts and (critically) ever-increasing climate crisis impacts continue to put pressure on food prices. Our policy response hasn’t caught up with this reality yet.
A Historic Shift on School Food
In 2024, we saw the long-awaited launch of Canada’s national school food program. We are no longer the only G7 country without such a program. This is the culmination of a decade of advocacy from the Coalition for Healthy School Food, of whom we are a proud member. There is now federal funding flowing to multiple provinces, and a national food policy to guide its implementation.
Newfoundland and Labrador has long been ahead of the curve on school food, and that continued in 2024. The Province committed to providing school meals to Pre-K to Grade 9 students well before the national program rolled out. When the national program did, our province was the first to sign a funding agreement with the federal government. Implementation is well underway, including a wide-ranging consultation process led by Food First NL.
This program has the potential to be transformative. First and foremost, it will get food to kids who need it. This will improve their ability to thrive at school and give their families some cost relief. It also creates an opportunity to build up local procurement, processing, and logistics in a way that enables community-based action across the province.
A Slowdown on Basic Income
A basic income would be a powerful push to advance the right to food in Canada, and advancing this conversation is a priority at Food First NL.
In last year’s right-to-food report, we highlighted the potential for the provincial All-Party Committee on Basic Income’s report to help move the needle on this file. We’re still waiting. The Committee’s report, originally scheduled for Summer 2023, still hasn’t been tabled in the House of Assembly. We remain hopeful that we’ll see it soon, and that it will endorse basic income as a critical policy solution.
Nationally, 2024 saw a great deal of advocacy to support the fully-developed proposal for a basic income pilot on PEI. We saw some slow but steady progress in necessary behind-the-scenes discussions and some strong new faces at national advocacy tables.
Minimum Wage Mystery
The minimum wage is one of the government’s most powerful levers to reduce food insecurity.
The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is required to review the province’s minimum wage every two years. 2024 was a review year but the process was challenging to follow. The review committee has not publicly released their report, unlike in 2022 or 2020. There will be at least a small increase because the minimum wage is pegged to inflation. Beyond that, we don’t know what direction they are taking.
Outside of government processes, we also saw updated living wage calculations for Newfoundland and Labrador. The NL Federation of Labour supported the 2024 update, following a process supported by Food First NL in 2023. For the first time, we are getting annual living wage updates for the province. That wage is now at $25 an hour, highlighting the huge gap between a living wage and the current minimum wage.
Progress on Access to Country Food
Improving access to country foods is a critical part of both advancing the right to food and advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in this province. In 2024, we saw progress in several community-driven initiatives. In Labrador, the Labrador Anchor Collaborative continued to leverage the health care system to improve country food access. That work is now expanding to a provincial scale. Aldercroft Farms is also building an abattoir just outside of Goose Bay, which is a long-needed piece of infrastructure. This will provide critical capacity to process locally harvested animals.
Photo credit: Scott Courage, City of St. John’s
Looking Ahead to 2025
From a right-to-food perspective, 2024 was a mixed bag. Looking ahead to 2025, here’s what’s on our radar screen.
An Election Year (x3)
In 2025, NLers are going to be voting a lot. We’re going to the polls municipally, provincially, and federally this year. Community organizations across the province and the country will mobilize to start conversations with candidates about their visions. Food First NL will very much be a part of this work. There will never be a better time to get decision-makers on the record about what actions they’ll take to advance the right to food.
The actual results of the elections will, of course, have an immense impact on the right to food’s trajectory over the coming years. Radical changes are possible at the federal level because of the major differences in social policies between the political parties. That seems less likely provincially, where there is more common ground on many of these issues.
One other impact of all these elections is that we’re likely to see a lot of policy and program delays. Nothing new gets approved during an election and it often takes a while for a new or returning government to get everything back into place. One place we’re watching this particularly closely is the Canada Disability Benefit, which is scheduled for July.
Trade War Impacts
Newfoundland and Labrador is part of a food system that extends across the country and around the world, including into the United States. At the time of writing, it’s not clear if a trade war between Canada and the USA will happen. But if it does, our province will experience immediate and long-term impacts on the right to food.
Most immediately, we would expect to see a sharp rise in food prices from Canada’s imposed counter-tariffs. The USA makes up more than 55% of Canada’s food imports, so tariffs would have a widespread impact.
In the medium and long terms, there are more questions than predictions. What would a response to a trade war look like? Would there be comprehensive cost-of-living relief? How much will commitments to buying local shift our food economy? It’s impossible to answer these in advance, but we could see a radically different food system by the time the next version of this report is written.
Provincial Policies Maturing
We expect to see some of the bigger impacts from new provincial policies in 2025. School food program expansions should start hitting the ground, en route to school meals for every Pre-K to Grade 9 student in the province. We will also see the launch of the province’s Disability Benefit, which will stack on top of the meagre $200/month Canada Disability Benefit. This will raise incomes for some people with disabilities by as much as 47% and should have a significant impact on their ability to afford food. We would also hope to see the impacts of other Poverty Reduction Plan measures start to show up in provincial food insecurity data.
Conclusion
2024 was a challenging year for the right to food in Newfoundland and Labrador, albeit one with some real glimmers of hope. We expect 2025 to be more of a roller coaster, with big world events and elections pushing our food systems in unexpected directions. There has never been a more important time for all of us to stay engaged, ask questions, and push hard for a province where everyone can eat with joy and dignity.