Food Banks Canada gets $17.9-million in federal funding to distribute menstrual products

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Food Banks Canada will get $17.9-million in federal funding to give low-income people pads and tampons at no charge, as part of a national pilot program to aid those who can’t afford menstrual products.

One in four women in the country said they had to choose between buying menstrual products and paying for food or rent in the past year, according to an April study from Plan International Canada, a non-profit organization focused on the rights of girls. The problem is known as “period poverty.”

“Being forced to choose between buying food and menstrual products, or between paying your rent and ensuring your own dignity, is not a choice anyone should be forced to make,” said Kirstin Beardsley, chief executive officer of Food Banks Canada, which will distribute supplies through community organizations.

Food banks are the right avenue “because they are the most in need and the closest to clients,” according to Palwashah Ali, advocacy chair with Bleed the North, an Ontario youth-led charity that has delivered nearly 150,000 donated pads, tampons and menstrual cups largely to shelters and food banks.

More than a third of Canadians with a household income of less than $50,000 said they’d been rationing pads and tampons, or using such products longer than is safe, because they couldn’t afford more, according to 2022 research from Plan International Canada. That figure rose to 48 per cent for Indigenous respondents.

At Toronto’s Allan Gardens Food Bank, which is seeing usage surge as food costs continue to increase, president Meryl Wharton spoke of a mother of three daughters who cut six donated pads in half, stretching her family’s supply to a meagre 12 pads for a full week. “This is serious,” Ms. Wharton said.

“We hear so many stories of people cutting pads in half or using products beyond the time frame that they’re recommended for, which can lead to infection,” said Danielle Kaftarian, operations manager at the Period Purse, a national charity focused on menstrual equity. “It affects their dignity.”

The broader aim of period poverty initiatives is to make sure no one has to sit out day-to-day activities because they lack menstrual supplies.

“There have been opportunities for work, school and exercise missed because they have had no access to period products,” said Veronica Brown, chapter lead for Moon Time Sisters Ontario, a non-profit organization that takes its name from a term for menstruation.

Staffers at its four Canadian chapters have shipped more than two million donated pads, tampons, menstrual cups and pairs of period underwear to schools, shelters, midwifery organizations and other community centres across approximately 125 Indigenous communities.

Citing exorbitant costs, cargo delays and hours-long drives to stores, Ms. Brown said some women have to resort to makeshift fabric pads.

“When you are living in poverty, and you already understand that finances are incredibly stressed, and you now are coming of age to have your moon time, you can see that as adding another burden for your family.”

The new pilot project will also partner with educational organizations focused on ending shame around menstruation. The goal is to have the $17.9-million spent by March, 2024, and data will be collected “to chart the path forward,” said Johise Namwira, a spokesperson in the office of the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth.

Pointing to Scotland, which in 2020 became the first country to provide menstrual supplies for anyone, experts want to see more permanent subsidies in Canada.

Here, efforts have been scattershot provincially and largely limited to schools. Over the past four years, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island have given tampons and pads to public school students of various ages. In 2021, the federal government promised to subsidize menstrual products for all students at on-reserve First Nations schools.

At federally regulated workplaces, employees are slated to receive their own publicly funded menstrual products this December.