From CTV today:

More Canadians are suffering from *food deserts*. And no, we're not talking about
the sweet dish at the end of a meal. We're talking about the inability to get
healthy fresh food in some neighborhoods.

Joe Hickey is a regular at London's food bank. With his disability money, he has
cash for food, but he can't afford the extra time and money to get to a grocery
store. "You have to take three buses to get there, and you to pay out your money to
get it. And what you get on disability doesn't get it."

Joe lives in what's called a "food desert." It's a neighborhood with no grocery
shop, so there's no easy access to healthy food like fresh fruits and vegetables.

Jason Gilliland says it's a situation that has become worse, especially for the poor
or the elderly. That's according to his research at the University of Western
Ontario. "Forty years ago about 75 percent of inner city residents had access to a
grocery store. easy access. Where as today, that's one in five."

The reason. big grocery stores have moved to the outskirts or suburbs where there
are people with more money and cars.

A return trip by bus from a so-called food desert would involve different routes and
could take up half a day. Walking there would be even longer. The alternative is
often a convenience store, which is inconvenient for people's wallets.

Jason Gilliland says "we discovered for households that live in a food desert, it
would cost 1.6 times more to buy their groceries at local convenient stores and
smaller shops."

At a conference in Waterloo, food experts talk about how *food deserts* in Canada
have become more prevalent in the past decade. Melanie Bedore, a Phd candidate at
Queen's University says "Edmonton all the way down to a smaller city like Kingston,
which is my research area, and in cities of all different sizes. all different
compositions. poor retail food access is a problem and becoming a bigger problem."

Big cities like Toronto are not immune to food deserts. Developers build grocery
stores in suburbs rather than downtown cores or lower income areas because land is
typically cheaper.

But Wayne Roberts, the head of Toronto's Food Policy Council says what's cheaper for
developers is more costly in the end. "Any money that supermarkets save by not
locating in a low income community, the tax payers pick up four years later when
that young child becomes diabetic and becomes a million dollar charge on the health
care system."

While politicians and academics discuss ways to fight food deserts, people like Joe
Hickey will have to continue their struggle for fresh and healthy food.

Toronto Food Policy Council