Canada is the only country in the G7 that doesn’t have a national school food program. Researchers say that as high inflation affects food prices, more children need access to these programs — but community groups say they need stable funding from the federal government to keep everyone fed.
It always seems strange when my American spouse talks about school lunches. As a Canadian, it’s entirely out of my experience.
Even eating at school wasn’t a thing for us—when I was in elementary school, only the kids being bussed in (a tiny minority) didn’t go home for lunch.
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I’m from small town, Saskatchewan and most of the kids in town went home for lunch.
Small Northern Ontario town in the 1980s. Everyone’s houses were within walking distance of the school, and it was normal for kids as young as five years old to walk home unattended. The school had been built in stages, I think starting in the 1920s, and there was no proper cafeteria, just a basement lunchroom with no facilities for storing or cooking food.
Some of us went home, but the school also offered a program - Vancouver, BC
Disappointed but can confirm. There was never a single food fight during my entire K - 12 education. It was massively disappointing.
I was led to belive food fights would be a bi weekly occurrence by our media overlords. They lied.
Hopefully it’s only because your family was financially secure, and you didn’t even notice the kids that needed these lunches getting these lunches. Being able to feed them without making them feel bad about it is awesome.
I can see 3 fresh food delivery trucks infront of a Montréal daycare/K-6 unloading right now. And there will be another 2-5 trucks tomorrow
No, not at all. Most of the time we ate nothing. Sometimes an apple, if they were harvestable locally. We were quite poor in the 80s.
That’s very unfortunate, and further highlights that Canada’s hackjob of school food programs is insufficient in it’s current state. I vaguely recall school breakfasts starting in the Ottawa region in the 90s.
Québec massive augmentation of the food program in 2020 (+$11Mn / 60%) really enamoured me with the province.
Same here growing up in a small west coast town. There was rarely even a cafeteria that served hot meals until high school and it wasn’t much as it was run by students for economics/business class. They also managed a small store that sold junk food and pop.
I did go to high school in Calgary for a bit but I was mostly in shock by the full time RCMP office in the school and the diversity of students beyond the mostly First Nations and Caucasians I grew up with so the lunch situation wasn’t really something I recall.
I suspect much has changed since then as this was in the early 90s.
I recall leaving school to go to local fast food joints or the convenience store for something to eat as far back as junior high. I’ve seen plenty of this with local convenience stores near schools too.
Recently I was in Cranbrook BC and stopped at a Safeway around lunchtime. I was floored at how many students were there getting lunch. It seemed like it was a big deal for the store as I hadn’t seen such a large deli and sandwich areas in big city Safeways. The high school was across the street so perhaps it acts as a cafeteria in this case.
I’m curious how public food programs are delivered in schools.