Huffington Post
The affordability and accessibility of child care can be linked to hunger and food insecurity. Our 2015 Hunger Report showed that families with children make up 41 per cent of households who visit food banks. Research from one of our members, the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto, indicates that a quarter of parents report the cost of, and access to, child care are barriers to them entering the workforce. If the cost of sending your kids to daycare eats up most of your salary, it doesn't make sense to work.
Juggling the costs of rent, child care, and other bills only gets worse for young families during the summertime. A survey released earlier this month reveals that a third of low and middle-income Canadian parents struggle to provide meals to their kids over the summer. When school is out, parents who rely on school meals, breakfast clubs and snack programs to help fill the gap cannot access these resources.