Food programs worldwide are struggling with funding shortages that are limiting their efforts to feed the millions who are hungry every day.
The World Food Programme reports that 309 million people in the 72 countries it serves face acute levels of food insecurity this year. There isn’t enough funding to buy the food that all the hungry need.
Hunger is not an issue, however, on Government of Canada airplanes. The politicians, bureaucrats and others who travel on the planes are quite well fed.
An example: A House of Commons document shows in-flight catering for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s six-day trip to Indonesia and India last fall totalled $223,000.
Folks on that trip were fed beef brisket with mashed parsley potatoes with truffle oil, pan fried beef tenderloin with port wine sauce, braised lamb shanks with steamed broccoli and boiled baby potatoes, and baked cheesecake with pistachio brittle.
The document also showed a $900 request for pop, chips, and other snacks on board and “cases of Flow Water.” Flow Water, is an expensive brand of premium alkaline spring water preferred by Trudeau, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).
The federation also has said that Gov.-Gen. Mary Simon’s trip to Dubai in March 2022 racked up $100,000 in airplane meals
“Is the government running a secret contest to see who can order up the most expensive meals while flying around the world?” Franco Terrazzano, CTF federal director has said.
“You shouldn’t need a focus group to recommend telling the prime minister to turn down the baked cheesecake with pistachio brittle when Canadians are lining up around the block at the food bank.”
And, lining up they are. Food Banks Canada reports almost two million visits to Canadian food banks in March of last year – an increase of 32 per cent over the previous March and 78.5 per cent over March of 2019.
The Salvation Army says it served 3.2 million community meals to the hungry last year. It also provided 257,000 school meals.
Last week the Trudeau government announced a plan to create a National School Food Program. The program will provide meals to up to 400,000 more kids every year, beyond those served by existing school food programs. The government plans to invest $1 billion in the program over five years.
That’s certainly an admirable commitment. But the political-bureaucratic class still needs a major mind reset on wasteful spending. Especially considering the Canada’s national debt now is $1.4 trillion and will cost $47.2 billion to service this year.
The politicians are quick to deny any responsibility or knowledge of top-level spending on government aircraft flights. They blame the department of national defence, which operates most of these flights, or others who arrange catering.
"I have no idea the context of these flights or how these things are done," Dominic LeBlanc, the Trudeau minister responsible for democratic institutions, said when the governor-general’s trip costs were being questioned.
Oh really? So, what then are we paying him two or three hundred thousand dollars a year to do then?
(Canadian members of Parliament now are the world’ second-highest paid elected officials. American elected officials are the world’s highest paid.)
No one needs a gourmet meal on a government aircraft making the six-plus-hour trip from Montreal to Paris. Surely a sandwich and a cup of tea would suffice, especially considering a 2022 Statistics Canada estimate that 22.3 per cent of Canadian families experienced food insecurity over one year.
Much of the work of food banks and meal programs is being done by volunteers. They gather food and distribute it, or cook it and serve it on their own time and without pay or other physical reward.
A typical volunteer meal program will serve simple dishes of rice, chicken, corn and salad. There might be an apple or cherry pie for dessert. Not as fancy as braised lamb shanks and baked cheesecake, but certainly filling, nutritious and a lot less expensive.
The $100,000 spent on airplane meals for the governor-general’s Dubai trip, or the $223,000 for Trudeau’s Indonesia trip would go a long way to feeding the hungry.
It certainly would buy a lot of chicken and rice.
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