The federal government has announced that refugees are welcome in Canada and we Canadians will pick up the tab for these new people accordingly; $15 for breakfast, $16 for lunch and $30 for dinner, per day and per person. Only the cost of meals is being addressed in this letter. That amounts to $61 per person per day or about $1,800 per month.
The government, with this revelation should heed its own commitment and now “mandate” that all citizens of Canada should have this as a minimum coverage allowance for meals per day for each resident living here.
In addition, I trust still the government acknowledges that there exists about one million children in this country that do not eat every day. Feed them or allow them that amount to feed themselves.
As an example and reference point, I’d like to add that recently my mother was a resident at a long-term-care facility.
Whilst my mother was a resident, we were advised that the allowance for food per resident at that facility was $7.41 per person per day ( about $230 per month). That is less than $2.50 per person per meal.
Recently, I have read that the allowance for persons living in any retirement long term care communities in Canada, at large, is still under $8 per person per day. Remember that these are Canadian citizens being fed food after a lifetime of paying taxes, CPP deductions and numerous other fees — these are not newcomers to our country.
Please, The Honourable John McCallum, The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, the Liberal Party of Canada and all participating provinces, mandate and establish a guideline to all Canadian institutions and facilities to spend the same on food for the rest of Canada as those new refugees receive.
Fair is fair. I am now retired and very conscientious as to what the future bears for me. If my future cost of meals will amount to $1,800 per month then I am exceedingly nervous of financially surviving much longer.
Camillo TofanoQualicum Beach
