ANALYSIS: Can souped-up shipping containers solve food insecurity?

While campaigning in last year’s federal election, Leslie Church knocked on a door on Winona Drive, near St. Clair West in Toronto. It was a cold, snowy day. No one answered, so she began to leave. She only got to the end of the driveway before a woman bounded out the front door of her home and chased Church down in stocking feet, holding a toddler in her arms.

“I just didn’t want to miss you, and I will only hold you for one minute,” the frantic woman told Church. “Please remember food security.”

Toronto—St. Paul’s, which Church now represents, is one of Ontario’s higher-income ridings. And yet there is a food bank at the end of Church’s street, serving hundreds of people every weekend. There’s also a soup kitchen around the corner. Actually, there are now several food banks.

The interaction was a not-so-subtle reminder to Church that even in her riding, which features so many upscale neighborhoods, getting three squares a day is still an issue for too many people.

Shockingly, in a country as rich as Canada, seven million people visit a food bank every month. In Ontario alone, between April 2024 and March 2025, officials counted 8.7 million visits to food banks — the ninth consecutive year of growth and a 13 per cent increase over the previous year. Astonishingly, it’s also a 165 per cent increase since COVID -19 hit, six years ago. […] This is an excerpt. Read the full article at TVO.org.