This transfer comes as meals banks throughout Canada are seeing record-high demand, pushed by rising meals costs and growing unemployment.
The Better Vancouver Meals Financial institution has confronted criticism for its determination to exclude new worldwide college students from its providers.
In line with a report in The Langara Voice, Emma Nelson, communications supervisor at GVFB, defined that the coverage is in place as a result of the federal authorities requires worldwide college students to have “substantial financial savings” earlier than arriving in Canada.
Efficient January 1, Canada greater than doubled the cost-of-living monetary requirement for worldwide college students, elevating it from $10,000 to $20,635.
This quantity, revised for the primary time in 20 years, shall be adjusted yearly primarily based on a Statistics Canada benchmark for dwelling bills.
“After a yr, these financial savings will doubtless have been used up, and meals insecurity is a real chance,” she advised the publication, run by journalism college students at Langara Faculty.
However Nelson’s ideas had been refuted by non-profit organisations such because the Khalsa Help.
After a yr, these financial savings will doubtless have been used up, and meals insecurity is a real chance
Emma Nelson, GVFB
Khalsa Help’s Metro Vancouver staff distributes between 200 and 300 meals packs to worldwide college students every month in Surrey, British Columbia.
Baljit Kamoh, Khalsa’s Vancouver regional director, mentioned demand for these packs spikes at the beginning of every time period, doubtless as a result of new college students are sometimes unaware of the providers out there to them.
In line with Kamoh, worldwide college students typically really feel extra secure of their group after a yr.
She additional highlighted that the variety of worldwide college students utilizing GVFB drops by the point they’re of their second yr.
In line with Kamoh’s web site, post-secondary college students accounted for twenty-four p.c of latest GVFB registrants previously yr, which is predicted to rise.
In line with Canadian media reviews, over two million Canadians used a meals financial institution in March of this yr, in comparison with a million in March 2018.
Dan Huang-Taylor, government director of Meals Banks BC, advised TLV that the variety of post-secondary college students in B.C. utilizing meals banks greater than doubled between 2019 and 2023.
