In a country where Canadians visited food banks more than one million times in one month alone last year, the figures are “unacceptably high” and striking for the territories.

In fact, in March 2018, those living in the three northern regions visited a food bank more than 6,600 times.

Those needing food were almost evenly split at more than 3,000 visits each for both children and adults.

The findings come as part of a national report by Food Banks Canada, released Monday, which details a somewhat grim picture for areas across the country.

Speaking to the nearly 1.1 million visits made nationally, Tristan Newsome, who manages the Whitehorse Food Bank, agrees the statistics are well worth noting.

“That number in itself is pretty striking,” the executive director said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

“But the big number that jumps out at us was (almost) half are kids under 18; that’s really crazy,” he added, pointing to the data that provide a breakdown per jurisdiction and group the territories together.

(The stats are broken down in specific age groups of 0-2, 3-5, 6-11 and 12-17 years of age, but combined, they show that just over 43 per cent are those below 18 years of age).

For comparison: nationally, about 35 per cent of those relying on the banks are children – despite representing only 20 per cent of the overall population.

Here in the city, Newsome estimated that about 30 per cent of the city’s food bank clients are children. So, while it isn’t quite as high as that overall figure for the territories but more in tune with the national number, it still shows a need for action.

Newsome wonders whether adjustments to the social assistance and welfare programs are worth examining.

“I don’t know the entirety of the economic implications of adjusting our social and tax systems,” he said.

However, he was able to speak to some of the concerns he’s heard on the ground from when the facility first opened its doors in 2009.

“If you’re reliant on social assistance and you try to go out to the workforce and make some extra income, a lot of the benefits are clawed back in a very dramatic way.

“Which creates this loop effect, (making it) difficult for people to get out of social assistance,” he said.

“I’ve heard on the ground that being a complaint of a lot of our clients.”

It’s something the report echoes.

One of the overall findings points to poverty being a root cause for food bank use.

It cites that more than half (59 per cent) of households visiting the banks list social assistance and disability-related supports as their primary source of income.

In the North, that figure sits at a similar ranking, at just over 58 per cent.

One of the recommendations as laid out in the report hopes to address this, calling on the federal government to look at moving toward a basic income for all Canadians.

“Under our current system of social assistance, one must be virtually penniless before being able to apply for support,” the report said.

Once approved, it added, the yearly welfare income for a single person was just over $8,500. That was as of 2017, and is a figure that is more than $10,000 below the poverty line.

“Waiting on provinces themselves to forge a new path forward towards a Basic Income is no longer an option,” it continued, adding that increases the need for federal leadership.

Meanwhile, Newsome predicted that there could be some discrepancy among the territories, especially in areas like Whitehorse and Iqaluit.

The report also reflects this, noting that there are no roads to Nunavut, making the only way to getting anything into the communities by plane or by sea during the late August to early September period.

A recent summer saw Food Banks Canada help staff at the food bank there purchase food at a reduced cost from a wholesaler.

It was moved to a Montreal harbour and loaded in a sea container before being shipped north to Iqaluit – a first for the community.

On a more local level, Newsome added that the food bank in Whitehorse had also seen a first recently, after demand fluctuated in more recent years.

“2017 was the first time since we opened that we saw a decrease in client usage – but in 2018, it was slowly tracking back up again,” he said of the site.

From that time period till about 2016, he likened the usage to one that was slowly “skyrocketing” before a hopeful sign hit, showing that numbers were down for 2017.

“So that was fantastic news; that was good. But then in 2018, that trend didn’t continue; it turned back up the other way.”

Newsome cited the 1,172 visits made to the bank during March 2017, a number that climbed to 1,324 a year later.

He pegged the visits to be in the 1,300 to 1,400s in 2016 and prior – showing that the visits were high until 2016, dropped in 2017, then climbed back up last year.

Asked why that was, Newsome said he isn’t quite sure. “I know in 2017, Canada was in a great position unemployment wise, it was super low. Which is fantastic, that was a factor.

“But the issues of poverty are far more complex than that.”

Still, Newsome also said the high cost of food can be an inescapable reality in the North.

“A large part of that is just inflated food costs – from a northern perspective, investing in reducing those prices and making it more affordable to those individuals is something that’s incredibly important.”

He predicted that once the mercury drops, usage rises by 20 to 30 per cent heading into the winter months for the bank.

“Food prices are drastically inflated in a lot of northern communities, especially Iqaluit,” he added, referencing that just under half of households in Nunavut are food-insecure.

“That’s leaps and bounds above the national average.”

The report added that it is “hardly surprising that close to one in five single adults experience food insecurity.”

As for other possible solutions, Newsome acknowledged that a number of studies and efforts have been taken to tackle things like food insecurity – among the more recent ones being changes to the federal Nutrition North program.

Ottawa announced back in December that things like dried beans and bannock-making ingredients like flour, butter, lard and cooking oils would get higher subsidies as part of changes to the program. That was welcomed by northerners, as it took into account local diets.

“Maybe adjusting, trying new things – our social welfare system hasn’t been tweaked or adjusted since the ’90s,” Newsome said.

That can ultimately help families with the cost of food while also relieving that cost in northern areas where they are inflated, he added.

Other recommendations from the report call to attention the impact food banks have on children, urging the creation of standardized affordable early learning and childcare across the country.

“A central focus of federal investment should be on building the necessary infrastructure needed to physically create more childcare spaces,” the report reads.

To help single adults living with low incomes, the group also suggests creating a new program to support sick and unemployed Canadians who are about to run out of their Employment Insurance or disability benefits. The Basic Income suggestion could also help in this, it added.