At Food First NL, our mission is to advance everyone’s right to food in Newfoundland and Labrador. As your new government works to develop its first budget since taking office, we are happy to offer suggestions on how that budget could help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians access the food they need.
Priority 1: Strengthen Income Support Benefits
Food insecurity is primarily an issue of poverty. While we are pleased to see a new Poverty Reduction Strategy in development, we also urge government to take immediate action to mitigate the incredible struggles many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are facing.
Quick Wins for Budget 2026:
Index income support rates to inflation
As members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Anti-Poverty Coalition, we endorse their recommendation to prioritize inflation indexing of income support benefits in the 2026 budget. As per their submission,“Without indexing, our province’s most vulnerable people lose ground every year as prices go up. We know from research done on this topic that the indexation of benefits was one of the most powerful tools deployed during the previous Poverty Reduction Strategy under the last PC administration. It was then quietly removed, and people’s standard of living started taking a steady hit. In 2014, a single employable person received $11,035 annually. Adjusted for inflation, ten years later that should have reached $14,625 - but the actual rate was $12,376. That’s almost 17% lower than an indexed system would have delivered.
Aside from the financial impacts, indexing income support rates to inflation also provides stability and predictability to people who rely on income support to survive. Rates have significantly improved in recent years but from a user perspective these increases have been unpredictable. This also contrasts sharply with our system for administering the provincial minimum wage, which is indexed to inflation. In the budget process we hope you ask why one kind of income is treated so differently from another. This is something that is within your power to change quickly in this budget so that low-income households can at least “hold the line” while a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy is developed.”
If your government is to choose one anti-poverty measure in this budget, make it this one.
Raise the income thresholds for access to the NL Child Benefit and Child Nutrition Programs:
The recent expansion of these programs was welcome news, but the thresholds for access mean that any households in poverty (and many more near poverty) will receive very little support. This gap was recognized in the PC Party’s Blue Book during the recent provincial election, with a commitment to “Update the eligibility criteria to allow more families and individuals to receive essential support from government programs”. We hope that this change is reflected in the 2026 budget.Match the federal Groceries and Essentials Benefit
We endorse the NL Anti-Poverty Coalition’s recommendation here:
“The Government of Canada recently announced the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (GEB). This benefit expands the preexisting HST rebate to provide more cost-of-living relief to low- and moderate-income households. Unfortunately, the dollar value of this benefit is still low – less than half that was proposed by the Affordability Action Council in their original proposal for a GEB.
We urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to create an NL Groceries and Essentials Benefit that matches the Canadian GEB dollar-for-dollar, bringing it much closer to the original proposed amount. This intervention would be similar to the NL Disability Benefit (though in that case, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is providing a two-to-one match to the federal program).”
Larger-scale shifts
We further hope to see some progress in Budget 2026 towards two structural changes that would significantly reduce food insecurity across the province.
Raise Income Support rates so that recipients no longer live in poverty: At the bare minimum, Income Support should bring recipients to or above the Market Basket Measure poverty line. At present time, the majority of income support recipients are food insecure - an increase in benefits would reduce that number.
Raise the minimum wage to a living wage. The minimum wage will reach $16/hour in April 2026. This is still well below the calculated Living Wage for NL of $25.31. This year is a legislated review year for the minimum wage and we urge government to increase the rate to at least $18/hour and lay out a goal of reaching a living wage within the current mandate.
Priority 2. Invest in a Basic Income Guarantee
We urge your government to begin the design and budgeting process for implementing a basic income guarantee in Newfoundland and Labrador. A basic income is the policy intervention that would do the most to reduce food insecurity in this province while also alleviating numerous other social challenges. With that in mind we urge the provincial government to engage in dialogue with the federal government to implement a full and robust Basic Income. In the meantime, we hope to see action taken while these negotiations are in progress. Those actions could include:
Quick Wins for Budget 2026
Table the report from the All-Party Committee on Basic Income in the next sitting of the House of Assembly.
As we understand it, this report is complete and its contents agreed upon by all three parties, but it has not been tabled. We would hope that it includes recommendations that could be budgeted for in the 2026 Budget. With that in mind we urge your government to table this report as soon as the House of Assembly resumes sitting, and to budget for any short-term recommendations in the report.
Larger-scale shifts
A provincially funded Basic Income Guarantee
There are a range of costed models for a provincial Basic Income that would have a significant impact on poverty. At the lower end of this range are models that the provincial government could afford and implement without federal investment or additional costs for the average tax payer.Expanding targeted basic income programs:
There are already three targeted basic income programs active in Newfoundland and Labrador. We believe that there are opportunities for further targeted programs that would help generate a further evidence base for a larger-scale program in the future, and we urge you to identify people that could benefit from them.
Priority 3: Support Community Food Access
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians face many barriers to producing and accessing food at the community level. While the income measures outlined in the first two sections of this submission are critical, government also has an important role to play in supporting the infrastructure that sustains our local food systems. Targeted investments in this infrastructure will have benefits for individuals, community organizations, and businesses of all sizes and scales.
Quick Wins for Budget 2026:
Allocate funds for Indigenous foods in the health care system
Over the last five years the From Land to Care Collaborative (a partnership between Indigenous governments and organizations, community organizations, NL Health Services, and the Government of NL) has been working to improve access to Indigenous foods through our province’s health care system. Significant progress has been made through pilot projects in Labrador that established and tested the necessary procedures to bring hunted and gathered foods into health care settings. This has been a highly successful effort with strong impacts on patients.Up to this point, this work has been undertaken using charitable funds. However, bringing Indigenous foods to patients at scale will need dedicated financial resources within NLHS’s budget to source, prepare, and serve Indigenous foods across all zones. We strongly recommend the allocation of some funds for this purpose in Budget 2026.
Improve public transportation accessibility through better information
In every public consultation Food First NL leads, a primary barrier to food access in this province is transportation. People all over Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling to get to the food they need, and producers are struggling to get their food to communities. This is particularly true for households without access to a vehicle; there are many such households, and lower-income families are particularly likely to be in this position.Strengthening public transportation systems in the province is a long-term and large-scale effort, but one “quick win” has emerged in this space. With some funding from a foundation partner, Food First NL is engaged in an asset mapping project that aims to contact and survey all the existing transportation providers in the province to capture the areas they serve, their schedules, costs, and other such information. That data, once assembled and organized, would be very valuable to the public and to people working on food projects. We request that your government allocates funds to maintain and update this database going forward.
Sustain the Community Garden Support Program and increase the grants to $1500
As per the program description, “The Community Garden Support Program helps eligible municipalities, schools, not-for-profit organizations and community groups establish and enhance new and existing community gardens. Participants contribute to local food production and food self-sufficiency, so communities benefit from increased access to fresh, nutritious, locally grown food.”At Food First NL, we have seen the value this program brings; funds from it are often the initial seed for a community garden that can then move on to accessing other funding. We urge your government to sustain this program going forward.
With the very significant increases in supply costs in recent years, however, the $750 maximum for these grants is stretched thin. We would strongly support an increase in funding to this program to allow the same number of grants to be distributed with a $1500 maximum spend.
Establish a Food Program Transformation Fund
In 2022-23, the Government of NL helped Food First NL undertake a major consultation process focused on the future of food charity (e.g. food banks, meal programs, etc.) in this province. The result was an extensive report with recommendations for both food charities and government.One key recommendation could easily be actioned in the 2026 budget: the creation of a dedicated fund to support food program transformation and modernization. This would include improvements in governance, training, accessibility, and shared services. All of these things are recognized as important but difficult to fund through community donations.
A proposal to create such a fund was submitted by a group of community partners in 2024. An investment of $200,000/year would be sufficient to seed such a fund and draw in matched contributions from national charitable partners.
Larger-scale shifts
There are some very significant opportunities to invest in critical food system infrastructure:
Maximizing the value of school food infrastructure
Bringing school lunch programs to every student across the province is a transformative investment in community well-being. It also has the potential to be a transformative investment in food security. We encourage government to identify and fund shared infrastructure for the production, processing, and distribution of food, especially local food. This infrastructure could support procurement for school food programs and also enable procurement from health care and other large buyers, improving the sustainability of our local food producers.Investing in food hubs
Food hubs are growing all over Canada as a model that can fill many gaps in local food systems, improving access to locally produced food, aggregating that food for processing and bulk purchase, and providing a pathway to market for new farmers and harvesters. Dedicated operational funding for food hubs would help our local food systems be more resilient and allow fresh, affordable local food to reach more people.Filling transit gaps
Many people and communities in this province have little or no access to public transportation. Investments in changing this would have a significant impact on food security for many of the people who are struggling the most.
Conclusion
Newfoundland and Labrador is facing very challenging times right now, particularly in people’s access to food. Nearly 1 in 3 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are food insecure today. That is unacceptable, and the provincial government must play a major role in shifting that number.
Solving these problems isn’t something that can happen in one budget cycle - but ignoring them is not an option. This submission has outlined numerous achievable items for the 2026 budget that could help ground the strategies and plans to come. We’ve also highlighted some of the structural opportunities there are for long-term change. We hope to see both reflected in the budget.