00:06:20.700We continue as a government to be committed to, as my mandate letter says, provide adequate and long-term funding for our food bank partners, and we will continue to look for other ways that we can continue to partner with those important organizations to meet our objectives as a province and make Albertans' life a little bit easier.
00:06:38.220I would be amiss if I did not talk briefly about the carbon tax and the desire of our province, and I think many other provinces, to see the federal government remove the carbon tax when it comes to, or at least recognize in some way, the impact of the carbon tax on fuel costs and other affordability circumstances all across the country.
00:06:57.640Bank of Canada confirmed just last week that if the carbon tax was eliminated, we would see our inflation rate decrease by 16%.
00:07:05.860The single biggest impact to food costs right now in our country is coming from the increase to fuel costs.
00:07:13.140And that's because everywhere from the farm to transportation to grocery stores to grocery stores themselves are impacted by that carbon tax.
00:07:19.960And we really will continue to call on the federal government to join our ambition in making things a little bit easier for Albertans as we face this unprecedented challenge.
00:07:28.660In the meantime, we will continue to invest, as I said, $5.1 billion in affordability measures to do our part to make life better for Albertans.
00:07:37.040But we cannot do that without our partners.
00:07:39.160And so today I would also like to ask Shawna from the Alberta Food Bank to come up and say a few words about our announcement today and the important work that they're doing.
00:07:49.960Thank you to Minister Nixon. It's hard to follow up someone that tall.
00:07:59.080Every food bank within this province is as unique and distinctive as the community in
00:08:03.340which it serves. They all, however, share one commonality and that is a commitment to
00:08:08.860ensure children, families, seniors and individuals do not leave their spaces hungry. This announcement
00:08:16.040today is about food but just as importantly it is about ensuring access
00:08:20.300to food regardless of where you live within our province this funding will
00:08:25.540support community food banks as they support their own with compassion
00:08:29.900consideration efficiency and effectiveness it will fuel the trucks
00:08:34.340that deliver food in rural and remote areas where transportation is a barrier
00:08:39.200it will purchase the refrigeration to ensure fresh milk and eggs to children
00:08:44.700whose access to such things is limited it will heat and life the safe spaces
00:08:51.320small-town Alberta food banks provide to people needing not only food but also
00:08:55.980community connection resources and understanding food bank usage in Alberta
00:09:01.560continues to rise year after year with food insecurity remaining a serious and
00:09:06.120pervasive issue there is no one solution to addressing complex social problems
00:09:11.100such as this, but all solutions require the kind of cooperation and collaboration we are seeing
00:09:17.380today as government, organizations, and community come together to address the need. Regardless of
00:09:24.320whether they occupy a church basement, a warehouse, or are tucked away in a donated corner of a town
00:09:30.920hall, each and every food bank in this province is committed to making the most out of what they
00:09:36.320been given as they safeguard and support the wellness of their communities and its members
00:09:42.240through donations of food everyday albertans show their commitment to feed their neighbors
00:09:47.520through provisions of funding such as this the government of alberta shows their commitment
00:09:52.880to feed the organizations and communities that work tirelessly on behalf of those in need thank you
00:09:59.200thanks Shauna this is um this is a welcome announcement and it's it's really wonderful
00:10:10.000to be here um food banks like the Calgary food bank have been operating for the last
00:10:15.360four decades in our province backed by our communities for our communities and well I'm
00:10:20.080really grateful to be here today and to have an announcement like this that supports us in so
00:10:24.880many ways i wish we didn't have to be here since 2019 the calgary food bank has seen a 140 increase
00:10:33.840in client visits in just the last year we have seen an over 30 increase in client visits we are
00:10:42.000seeing the impacts of our cost of living crisis every single day where access to nutritious food
00:10:49.840is becoming increasingly unattainable for people who otherwise would never have imagined that they
00:10:56.480would need this help. The financial commitment that our provincial government has spoken about
00:11:01.600today is going to enable us to ensure that we support food insecure Albertans so that they
00:11:07.040don't have to worry about where their next meal will come from, a basic fundamental need for
00:11:12.240everyone. We know that things are especially challenging right now because when we look at
00:16:07.300I mean, the cool part about food banks is you have everything from here,
00:16:10.520a very large food bank here in Edmonton,
00:16:13.060and you can go back into my hometown of Sundry,
00:16:15.560and the food bank will look very, very different,
00:16:17.040but it's still absolutely critical for our community.
00:16:19.240And so different amounts will impact each of these organizations in different ways,
00:16:23.380but it'll be it's a clear statement and a clear emphasis that that partnership
00:16:28.220that we started about a year and a half ago food banks is going to continue
00:16:31.060and that the Alberta government wants to continue to stand side by side with
00:16:34.320food banks as they do their important work and I don't know if any of you guys
00:16:37.480want to add about impact to your organizations because I mean at the end
00:16:41.060of the day just like parents they all have grocery bills you know how much
00:16:44.200money is so just like some real numbers would be great
00:16:46.660why don't i uh so they're they're scared to speak specifically to real numbers without making sure
00:16:54.500they double check it what i can do though is i can commit that we'll quickly follow up with
00:16:57.940you right after this and make sure we're giving you an accurate number great okay next question
00:17:04.900okay if we don't have any more questions in the room we'll move oh i'm amy from cbc french and
00:17:10.980maybe more for the food banks but christmas is coming do you think it's gonna be enough for you
00:17:16.420like this money i follow up a little bit on your question
00:17:25.540so earlier in my comments i tried to demonstrate the
00:17:30.500volume of people coming through edmonton's food bank and the enormous
00:17:34.660need we're seeing as well as of course calgary is seeing
00:17:38.820more and more people coming to them and rural food banks are seeing
00:17:42.580that growing demand. I think that this beautiful gift from the province of Alberta will help bridge
00:17:49.780us and provide some much needed support as we're going through these challenges but it doesn't take
00:17:55.620away from the important work and contributions of our volunteers for example that are packing
00:18:01.860hampers or food or money donors that are helping us each and every day do the work that we are doing.
00:18:07.940I think, again, it speaks to that pooling and that commitment to try to address food security that we're all working together with.
00:18:18.180And we're really pleased that the province of Alberta is working with us to make that a relationship as well as, you know, make an impact on the lives of people that we're serving each and every day.
00:18:35.300I'll add one thing to that, actually, if I could.
00:18:37.260But I think that that emphasis on the importance of non-government organizations like we're in today, as well as their volunteers, is something that our government wants to advertise and be very loud about.
00:18:50.500It's something that Alberta should be proud about.
00:18:52.020We have some of the largest volunteer numbers anywhere in the country.
00:18:54.880And as we go into Christmas, we know we depend on these organizations and their volunteer base and their donor bases to be able to help us be able to meet our social obligations across the country.
00:19:03.640I got to be the Executive Director of the Mustard Seed in Calgary for many years,
00:19:07.900and I can tell you we depended on our 11,000 volunteers and the government
00:19:11.220to work together to be able to accomplish our goals,
00:19:14.020which is why you continue to see Alberta's government work with organizations like this
00:19:19.240rather than to try to tackle these problems ourselves.
00:19:26.660You talked about federal policy being a big part of this
00:19:29.240and basically preventing people from coming to the food banks.
00:19:32.000And this morning, Jagmeet Singh ended up talking about giving, he proposed basically giving more power to the Competition Bureau so that there was more competitive prices at the big grocery chains.
00:19:42.720Is that something you would like to see or why or why not?
00:19:45.460I'm always happy to see the Competition Bureau making sure things that are fair are fair for consumers.
00:19:51.320We encourage that to take place when we made the decision to remove the fuel tax in Alberta to make sure that consumers are being treated fair at the pump.
00:19:59.220But I want to be clear, the single biggest thing that could be done tomorrow is not another committee, not another meeting.
00:20:05.800Justin Trudeau could immediately go in the House of Commons and at least temporarily suspend things like the Carbon Tax to help Albertans pay for food, for heat, for their fuel.
00:20:15.860This is impacting the cost of all of our lives.
00:20:18.740Again, that number, 16 percent immediate reduction in our inflation rate is something that the government cannot ignore for much longer.
00:20:25.140So I do hope all of our federal colleagues immediately look at that and let's come together and give Canadians the best Christmas present ever,
00:20:32.460which is remove this tax because it's really impacting our bills right now.
00:20:51.000There's a few different ways that food banks can access these funds.
00:20:53.480So there's some funding that goes to the day to day and then there's some funding for emergent needs and also some funding that allows us to perhaps look at some innovative ways to look at our operations and do things differently.
00:21:02.920So I think that's just such a great multifaceted approach that it's not just the bandaid of feed today, but that there's different mechanisms with which we can apply for this money so that we're looking at things differently on the day to day with with the immediate needs funding that we're receiving.
00:21:19.620honestly we're just at a point where every bit helps and so I think that this
00:21:24.240funding will just be put to good use in terms of food purchase and supplies to
00:21:27.900feed Albertans at the end of the day. Just on that note sorry just on that note
00:21:33.660has anything changed in the last year or six months when that you guys have
00:21:37.380changed I mean you've never seen a demand like this in your life ever in
00:21:40.920any of the food banks even stuff like how you pack boxes or how much food you
00:21:45.780give for family like has anything changed to I guess evolve or accommodate this crazy amount of
00:21:51.420people I'm six months on the job so I'm gonna let Marjorie answer that so people have been very kind
00:22:03.480to us as an organization both with their kind donations of food or money or time the challenge
00:22:10.740we've had as an organization is the number of agencies approaching us for
00:22:15.600food as well as the number of people coming to us for food so at the
00:22:20.940beginning of last year and we were very transparent with the broader community
00:22:25.620we did make some programming changes so we changed the the size of the hampers
00:22:31.320slightly to and modified them so that we could keep up with this growing demand
00:22:37.140And we also were a little bit clearer about expectations about the agencies that were coming to us and accessing food from us so we would have more transparency and accountability for food that was going back out in the community.
00:22:53.280So we had to make some changes and, you know, increase hours of operation.
00:22:59.640Those kind of things have been slowly increasing over time.
00:23:03.640And we've doubled the staff to outstanding number of four in our Beyond Food program to accommodate, for example, Ukrainians and other people that are coming looking for free safety tickets and resume support and stuff like that.
00:23:19.340so we have been making changes to hopefully try to address this growing need in our community
00:23:27.420we'll move to the phones now operator could i get the first caller please