Food insecurity in Quesnel

Courtesy of the City of Quesnel:

At this week’s Council meeting, we received a presentation about food security issues in Quesnel from Kirsten Balaski, Community Food Coordinator with the Canadian Mental Health Association of Northern BC. Kirsten works out of the former community policing and bylaw offices in West Quesnel, a space provided to the Canadian Mental Health Association by Quesnel City Council as part of our contribution toward making more mental health supports available in our community.

Food security is defined as having “reliable access to enough safe, nutritious and culturally diverse food.” In Northern BC, approximately 1 in 5 households are deemed to be food insecure; that is, one in five households do not have consistent and dependable access to a safe, nutritious and diverse food supply. 

Like the rest of Northern BC, Quesnel has some sectors of our population that are particularly prone to food insecurity; specifically: seniors, single-parent households, aboriginal households, households with school-aged children, and individuals who do not have a diploma or degree. The biggest determinant of food insecurity, however, is household income, and Quesnel has a high percentage of low-income households, especially households with school-aged children.

Households that rely on income assistance are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity, as the financial assistance they receive from the Province is not sufficient to enable the household to reliably obtain a safe, nutritious, and diverse food supply and cover all other basic living expenses (rent, transportation, clothing, school supplies, etc.). Most individuals and families that rely on income assistance need access to supplemental food supports (food banks, Good Cheer Hampers, etc.) which are limited in Quesnel and continually struggle to keep up with demand, which has been increasing over the past few years for a variety of reasons.

In order to create a safe, resilient and sustainable community, Council knows it needs to pay attention to all domains: economic, environmental, and social. When necessary, we need to act as a political lobby to get provincial or federal attention to an issue. Sometimes we may need to act as a facilitator to help establish collaborative partnerships in our community to effectively and efficiently marshal the resources that are available to us. And, in some cases, we may need to act directly to get our community needs addressed by creating programs and policies or by providing financial assistance through grants.

Food insecurity is a complex social issue that will require Council to use all of the tools available to us to get it addressed: lobbying the Province for some form of basic income and for more aggressive and proactive poverty reduction initiatives; facilitating the coordination and collaboration of all of the groups working to address this community need; potentially creating a Food Security Policy for Council; and, providing more assistance to social groups to obtain grants, including potentially contributing some financial resources to enable our community to access larger grants from external agencies.

This week’s presentation to Council by Quesnel’s Community Food Coordinator affirmed that food insecurity is a growing concern in our community, one that Council needs to more proactively engage in addressing. Over the coming weeks, Council’s Executive Committee will take the recommendations made in the presentation and report back to Council on a proposed action plan that would see us engage appropriately and proactively in an effort to address this serious, longstanding social issue in our community.    

View the Food Security in Quesnel presentation

Bob Simpson is the Mayor of Quesnel, British Columbia.  He can be reached via email here