The head of the Kamloops Food Bank is warning that BC is showing some concerning grades as part of Food Banks Canada’s first-ever poverty report card.

Kamloops Food Bank Executive Director Bernadette Siracky says BC got a rating of D+ across four categories including; experience of poverty, poverty measures, material deprivation, and anti-poverty legislative process.

She says there were some areas where B-C failed, pointing to the fact that more than 40 per cent of people in the province spend more than 30 per cent of their paycheque on housing.

“That’s a third of what you make linked to housing and that’s not necessarily a mortgage payment, it could be rent. But that’s a very large percentage of what you make,” said Siracky.

“57 per cent of people are indicating that the rates they are making at work are not high enough to keep up with the cost of living and not increasing at the same rate.”

Siracky says the increases in the cost of living have forced some people unable to afford basic expenses like rent, gas, car insurance, and food. 

“When you are living with a fixed income, they (basic expenses) become questionable and that is where food banks exist,” said Siracky. “Sometimes people pay everything else and then come here for support with their food needs, so even food becomes a secondary expense for some households.”

Pointing to the March 2023 Hunger Count, Siracky says there are more people than ever relying on the food bank.

“One of the things that they mentioned in this report is that’s the largest number ever — in the history of Food Banks since 1992 (1998 in Kamloops) — have accessed food banks,” she said. 

“So 2 million Canadians accessed a food bank in March of 2023… Here in Kamloops, just at our food bank, we had 2,447 visits.”

Meanwhile, Siracky says the poverty experiences seen in British Columbia is a similar issue seen not only across the country but the entire continent.

“This is a tipping point in time and I do not know how this will unfold. I can tell you that in the food bank, we have never been so busy and we have never given out so much food.”

BC was also given a fail in the report for the poverty rate which is based on data from Statistics Canada’s 2021 report on the Canadian income survey.

The full 2023 Poverty Report Card from Food Banks Canada can be found here.