Murielle Vrins
Assistant Director, Educational Programs
Published on
This morning, like hundreds of thousands of other children across Quebec since the start of the school year, Olivia and Liam headed off to school. They are the same age. They have the same teacher. The same math class at 8:15 a.m. Yet their days did not begin the same way.
Olivia left home after a good breakfast, with a lunch box full of nutritious food. Liam left with his stomach half empty and only a few things to nibble on for lunch. In their classroom, they sit side by side. They are expected to concentrate, learn and succeed equally. But even before the bell rings, their chances of doing so are already unequal.
One child in four
This scene plays out every day in our public schools. In Quebec, more than one in four children grows up in a household experiencing food insecurity—nearly 500,000 children like Liam, for whom hunger remains an invisible barrier to success. Meanwhile, two-thirds of children aged 4 to 13 do not eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables a day, and junk food remains part of far too many young people’s diets, especially teenagers’. Far from being an isolated problem, this situation has serious implications for public health.
To address it, civil society organizations, parents and citizens from all walks of life have been working for years to make school food a national priority. The public agrees: according to a recent SOM poll, 72% of Quebecers believe that access to healthy meals at school should be a major priority during the current election campaign.
Policymakers have heard the message, at least in part, and meaningful progress has been made. Investments from both levels of government have, for example, enabled Breakfast Club of Canada, La Cantine pour tous and La Tablée des Chefs to expand their presence in schools. Yet a majority of Quebec schools—including many in disadvantaged communities—still lack access to a comprehensive school food program that can provide students with healthy food on a consistent basis.
The next milestone: every school in a disadvantaged community
With the election campaign in full swing, we therefore call on all political parties to make a commitment that is both essential and realistic: by 2030, fully fund an integrated school food program in every school serving a disadvantaged community. Specifically, we mean schools ranked from 7 to 10 on Quebec’s socioeconomic environment index (IMSE). We also recommend including schools with limited physical access to nutritious food, located in what are known as “food deserts.”
Students attending these schools should have access to affordable or free breakfasts, lunches and snacks. To help young people make informed food choices and adopt healthy habits, we believe these programs must include a substantial food literacy component. This means, among other things, offering food education activities, creating mealtime environments that help students develop food knowledge and skills, and ensuring that staff are trained in effective food literacy practices.
Experience elsewhere in the world shows that these integrated school food programs deliver a strong return on investment for society. They support educational success, reduce inequalities and help raise a healthier generation. They support families and regional economies through the various nonprofit organizations already working in the school food sector. Ultimately, they give every child like Liam and Olivia the chance to learn on a full stomach, without being stigmatized by the contents of their lunch box.
On behalf of the members of the steering committee of the initiative for a universal school food program in Quebec (PASUQ):
- Lucie Laurin, Association québécoise de la garde scolaire
- Mélanie Veillette, Les Ateliers cinq épices
- Thibaud Liné, La Cantine pour tous
- Marie-Claude Bienvenue, Breakfast Club of Canada
- Jennifer Brennan and Marguerite Kinfack, The Depot Community Food Centre
- Murielle Vrins, Équiterre
- Anne Marie Aubert, Conseil du système alimentaire montréalais
- Jean-François Archambault, La Tablée des Chefs
- Sébastien Desaulniers T., Quebec chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food
