The Saskatchewan NDP says a Saskatchewan food bank declaring a crisis isn’t alone.

After their food supplies ran dangerously low this week, the Moose Jaw & District Food Bank says more help is needed from both local community and government to avoid shutting down.

The NDP Leader says the Regina Food Bank has been vocal about the unprecendented use and reliance on the food bank in that community. In Saskatoon, upwards of 23,000 people use the food bank in a month. And last year alone Saskatchewan Food Banks saw a 24 per cent increase in usage and since 2019, it has been almost a 50 per cent increase.

“There is no good reason that working people, that seniors on fixed incomes, that children are going hungry again in a province like Saskatchewan. You only need to look to the Premier’s rhetoric around this province and the economic prosperity that he claims. What is going on that, that is not the reality for people on the ground?”

Beck was in Moose Jaw Thursday at the Food Bank where staff are asking residents to send letters and sign a petition requesting that provincial and federal government step in to help. The food bank receives no government funding. Beck says they have been calling for the government to halt increases on utilities and believes the SIS program is contributing to the unprecedented demand for food banks

“The Food Bank has never received government funding and I think that is particularly concerning when we see government programs that are sort of exacerbating the need. So I think where we would start is with the structural changes that we can control as a province which is to ensure the social assistance program, the minimum wage, the supports for seniors, the supports for kids, are there. And currently they are not.”