The member of parliament for Windsor-Tecumseh is celebrating the news of a national school food program.
On Monday, the federal government announced a commitment to allocate $1-billion over five years to fund the new program.
The funding, which will be included in the upcoming April 16 budget, aims to help expand existing school food programs by providing meals to an additional 400,000 Canadian kids a year.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made the announcement in Scarborough, where they vowed to work with provinces, territories, and Indigenous partners on implementation.
Irek Kusmierczyk believes there is no community in Canada that will benefit from this investment more than Windsor-Essex, based on data collected over the years by United Way.
"They've been saying for years we have one of the highest child poverty rates right here in our community," says Kusmierczyk. "We've got neighbourhoods across Windsor-Essex where one out of three kids are in poverty and food insecurity. So this announcement is going to make sure that no child goes to school hungry."
He says this is a historic moment that many locally, and across the country, have been fighting for over a long period.
School meal programs already exist in varying forms in all provinces and territories, but according to federal statistics they only reach approximately 21 per cent of school-age children.
Kusmierczyk says no matter where people live in Canada, no kid should go to school hungry.
"This billion dollars is going to be shared with the provinces to boost the funding that they provide for their provincial school food programs," says Kusmierczyk. "But it's also going to put a lot of pressure on provinces like Ontario to say listen, you've got to do better, you have to step up. Let's provide equal opportunity for our kids."
He says the national school food program will not replace any provincial programs, but rather augment and boost those programs to expand them to all schools because right now the discrepancy is too much.
"You can have two schools literally two area codes or neighbourhoods away, one school will have a really strong parent council, strong volunteer base, to bring a school food program to their school, and then a school literally across the street might not have one," he says. "This is going to make sure that it equals the playing field."
The federal government has already held consultations to help guide a policy framework regarding the expansion of Canadian school food programs, and officials want to see the school food funding rolled out as early as the 2024-2025 school year.