1. Permanently reform EI for a modern workforce

Global uncertainty, tariffs, and persistently high unemployment are exposing long-standing weaknesses in Canada’s income support system. Built for a postwar labour market of stable, full-time jobs with a single employer, EI has not kept pace with a workforce increasingly defined by part-time, temporary, and contract work. It now covers a shrinking share of workers, disproportionately shutting out youth, people with disabilities, and racialized Canadians.Eligibility is tied to accumulating insurable hours within a fixed period, with thresholds that vary by region. As a result, only about one-third of unemployed Canadians receive regular EI benefits, and those who do qualify receive just 55% of previous earnings, up to $729 per week [1]. EI remains the primary income source for only about 3% of food bank clients, yet recipients who access food banks are especially likely to have recently lost a job or hours, suggesting existing benefits do not adequately replace lost income.
Food Banks Canada welcomes the government’s temporary EI measures for workers affected by the current trade disruption, but the recurring need for tariff-specific relief is a red flag: EI keeps requiring emergency top-ups rather than functioning as a durable safety net. Temporary measures should be the foundation for permanent reform, not a substitute for it. Canada needs a modern EI system for a modern workforce:

• Expand access: establish a uniform national eligibility threshold of 420 hours and a hybrid hours-and-weeks model to better capture part-time, seasonal, and irregular work.
• Include non-standard workers: strengthen enforcement against worker misclassification and create a contribution-based pathway for self-employed and gig workers.
• Improve adequacy: introduce a minimum weekly benefit floor of at least $450 and raise the replacement rate above the current 55%.
• Protect access across life events: create a separate EI stream for caregiving and illness.
• Strengthen transitions: introduce a second support stream for people who exhaust benefits before finding work, extending income and employment supports for up to one year alongside enhanced training and job-matching; and count time in recognized education, training, apprenticeships, and national service toward eligibility for younger workers.

2. Double the Canada Workers Benefit

Nearly one in six food bank clients are employed, underscoring that a job is no longer protection against food insecurity. Low or delayed wages were the primary reason for accessing a food bank for 22% of respondents in 2026, more than double the 10% recorded in 2025. The issue is not just whether someone has work, but whether earnings are sufficient, predictable, and available when bills are due.
The Canada Workers Benefit is meant to strengthen the return on employment, but its maximum value and phase-out thresholds are too low to close the gap between wages and living costs. In 2025, the maximum benefit was $1,633 for single individuals and $2,813 for families, phasing out at adjusted net incomes of $26,855 and $30,639 respectively [2]. Food Banks Canada recommends doubling the maximum benefit, raising the income threshold to at least the poverty line, and indexing both to inflation.

3. Remove barriers to the Disability Tax Credit (DTC)

Canadians with disabilities are nearly 50% more likely to experience poverty and twice as likely to experience food insecurity [3]. The DTC is required to access the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB), making it the primary gateway to federal disability supports. However, it was never designed for that role, and Statistics Canada estimates only 14.6% of persons with disabilities are eligible to claim it. An overly restrictive definition of disability and persistent administrative barriers exclude the majority from programs meant to guarantee an adequate standard of living.
While we support recent administrative changes expected to unlock an estimated $345 million [4] in support over six years, fundamental reform is still needed. We call on the federal government to commit to a collaborative process to design a new eligibility system that:

• Uses the Accessible Canada Act’s definition of disability as the starting point for federal disability programs.
• Creates a centralized, dignified, rights-based disability status determination process outside the tax system.
• Automatically extends federal disability certification to people already receiving provincial or territorial disability assistance.

Pending that redesign, the government should also remove barriers within the existing DTC process, including: a plain-language application co-designed with medical practitioners, people living with disabilities, advocates, community navigators, those who have used or tried to access the DTC, continued expansion of practitioners authorized to certify disability, direct reimbursement for practitioners who certify applications, simplified, less frequent renewals — building on Manitoba’s pilot, and increased funding for the Disability Benefit Navigation program.

4. Undertake a federal parliamentary study on the adequacy of social assistance

Social assistance is a provincial and territorial responsibility, but its inadequacy is now a national concern. Provincial social assistance remains the main income source for approximately 40% of food bank clients when general welfare and disability supports are combined, and incomes have not kept pace with the cost of living anywhere in the country.

The problem extends beyond benefit levels: restrictive asset rules, monthly income testing, limited earnings exemptions, and abrupt clawbacks make it difficult to accept temporary work or build savings.
We recommend that the House of Commons Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities committee and the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology undertake a federal study on provincial, territorial, and on-reserve income-support systems. The study should lead to measurable federal action, with the objective that no publicly funded income-support program leaves recipients unable to afford food and shelter.

5. Establish a National Housing Accord

Housing policy is food-security policy. Nearly three in four (71.8%) food bank clients rent in the private market, meaning that rising rents and worsening rental affordability have become significant drivers of food bank demand. The relationship extends beyond food bank use: food-insecure households are more than twice as likely as food-secure households to live in unaffordable housing. As housing costs consume a growing share of household budgets, more households are left with too little income to consistently afford food and other essentials.
With transfers under the National Housing Strategy expiring, the federal government should establish a National Housing Accord — a long-term framework for coordinated federal, provincial, territorial, municipal, and Indigenous investment — to ensure that the transition to Build Canada Homes preserves and strengthens the affordability supports needed by low-income renters and households facing the greatest risk of housing and food insecurity.
The accord should renew and expand funding for deeply affordable, supportive, co-operative, non-profit, and public housing; protect the existing stock of lower-cost rental housing; accelerate construction through federal land, financing, and tax measures; include dedicated streams for priority populations; require transparent annual reporting; and examine options to strengthen direct affordability supports for renters, including the continuation or replacement of existing housing benefits.

6. Establish explicit geographic policy tracks within Build Canada Homes

A single national delivery framework cannot respond to the different cost structures and governance arrangements across urban, rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. Build Canada Homes should establish three tracks: an urban and suburban track for communities of 30,000 or more; a small-town and rural track for communities of 1,000 to 30,000, with flexible density requirements and recognition of local supply chains; and a remote, northern, and Indigenous track with different cost benchmarks. Costs in the North can run two to three times those in southern Canada, and this track should coordinate with planned federal investment in Arctic security, transportation, and energy so that a sustained Canadian presence in the North comes with adequate civilian housing and services.

7. Replace the 12-month shovel-ready rule with a Pathways to Readiness stream

Requiring projects to be construction-ready within 12 months favours communities that already have serviced land and planning capacity. Remote, northern, and many Indigenous communities need more time for land preparation, environmental processes, consultation, and seasonal transportation. Build Canada Homes should fund a Pathways to Readiness stream covering housing-needs assessments, land-use planning, engineering and design, permitting, and project-management capacity so communities can enter the pipeline before they meet a conventional definition of shovel readiness.

8. Direct up to $500 million of the Food-Link Fund to strategic food infrastructure

The federal government should direct up to $500 million of the Food-Link Fund to food terminals, regional food hubs, warehousing, cold and frozen storage, processing, and transportation across the food bank network. Investment should build on infrastructure the network has already developed, target strategic gaps and priority locations, connect regional hubs across provincial and territorial boundaries, complement existing private-sector supply chains, and ensure investment reaches communities facing the greatest barriers to food access. The network has already built the relationships, data, and operational knowledge to move food across Canada. What is needed now is strategic public investment to connect, align, and scale that capacity.

Food security is inseparable from food sovereignty. While reducing the cost of store-bought food remains important, food insecurity in the North is also shaped by poverty, climate change, and the ongoing impacts of colonialism on Indigenous food systems. The Nutrition North Canada review reinforced that food insecurity cannot be addressed through retail subsidies alone. Nutrition North Canada must be reoriented from a narrow retail subsidy toward a transparent, accountable, collaborative, community-led food security strategy.

• Reform the retail subsidy to improve affordability, choice, dignity, and transparency. Establish clear affordability targets for subsidized foods, strengthen accountability and public reporting, and broaden eligible foods to better reflect community needs and preferences.
• Expand food sovereignty initiatives. Increase long-term funding for the Harvesters Support Grant and Community Food Programs Fund, strengthen Indigenous leadership in program governance, and support harvesting, food sharing, and other community-led approaches that improve access to country foods and strengthen local food systems.