Donations to Yellowknife’s main food bank have seen a substantial dip since last year, says Major Tony Brushett, executive director at Yellowknife’s Salvation Army. At the same time, recent data collected by Food Banks Canada shows that more people in the North are relying on food banks, a rate that has risen by over 20 per cent between 2024 to 2025.
With cutbacks to many social programs announced with last week’s federal budget, Brushett says the food bank is unsure how they will be impacted.
At the same time, usage of the food bank is going up. Brushett said more families are relying on the food bank and food programs each week. but donations have decreased by about 20 per cent since last year at this time.
“The numbers are rising. We expect them to once the cold weather hits up here. We’re only open two days a week, but we’re up to 100 families a week again and donations are down,” he said.
The cold season has brought an increase of 30 to 40 per cent demand to the Salvation Army’s food bank and food programs in the Yellowknife area.
“We would see on average week, during the spring and summer, about 60 to 70 families a week. So it is significant for us. We’re not a huge food bank here, but when you get those increases of roughly 50 (more) from summer to winter, it’s tough to keep up with because we’re also moving into Christmas mode here too,” he said.
According to data collected by Food Banks Canada, on average, the number of people using food banks across the country has risen by over 5 per cent between 2024 to 2025. And in the North, that statistic is four times the national average.
The data suggests that the number of people relying on food banks in the North has risen by 22.9 per cent.
One reason for this is the rising cost of living. According to data collected by Statistics Canada, the cost of housing and food has increased by over 25 percent from 2021 to 2025.
Brushett noted that there has been a sharp rise in the number of families relying on the food bank. Previously, the Salvation Army’s programs had serviced mostly couples without children and single-person households.
Researchers said that the trend is widespread and the data shows that Indigenous households and racialized households are particularly affected by food insecurity.
“Compared to before the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of two-parent households with children under 18 accessing food banks — from 18.8% in 2019 to 23% in 2025. Two-parent families who access food banks are more likely to live in larger urban areas of 100,000 or more and more likely to access food banks where the majority of clients are from racialized or Indigenous households. This trend is consistent with other research findings that show households with children have been especially hard hit by rapidly rising costs of living.33 That same survey also found that over one quarter (28%) of households with children expected to access food from a community organization in the next six months compared to about one in five among other household types,” said the authors of the report.
In urban hubs of the North like Yellowknife, despite what are chronic issues of food insecurity and sharp increases in food bank usage, there is also a shortage of full-time food banks.
“There are a couple of other smaller food banks open sporadically, but the Salvation Army is the only one that is open all year round,” said Brushett.
“We are 52 months, 52 weeks a year, open two days a week right now. And then, of course, we’re always open for emergency situations during the week,” he added.
While demand rises, the Salvation Army’s food bank donations are seeing a drop, he said.
“I attribute some of that to a couple of things. Some folks who were long-term donors, unfortunately, because of the turn in the economy. Some of them are now food bank users so obviously they can’t donate.”
The Christmas season will add pressure to the food bank and food services. The organization expects additional costs of $140 000 for their Christmas hampers and children’s toy drive this year, said Brushett.
Businesses are also cutting back on donations, said Brushett.
“Some of our businesses, who would donate their excess food, for obvious reasons too, they probably cut back on producing certain food items to save money themselves. So we are struggling that way, but we are managing to maintain what we need to.”
Data suggests that corporations and other companies across the country have seen a reduced ability to contribute to food banks, due to inflation among other economic stressors.
“Key drivers of demand, such as economic downturns or rapid inflation, can also impact the food bank system in terms of supply. For example, increases in unemployment and rapid inflation can affect donors’ and corporations’ capacity to contribute at the same time as the demand for services increases because individuals are facing greater financial hardship. The Canadian food bank system has had to adapt how it manages supplies in the face of skyrocketing need in the past four years. For example, nearly 80% of the network has had to purchase food to make up for insufficient food donations in 2025, compared to 55% in 2021. When the increased costs of the food they must purchase are factored in, food banks are spending an average of more than 2.5 times the amount on food every year than they did three years before — for example, they spent an average of $209,700 in 2021 and $535,700 in 2024,” said researchers with Food Banks Canada.
The Salvation Army continued receiving donations from across the community in the Yellowknife area, with individuals and businesses still managing to “come through” for the food bank, said Brushett.
“So we’re holding our own right now,” reflected Brushett.
The food bank is currently accepting donations of non-perishable food items and monetary donations.
“Once we hit Christmas mode, the 1st of December, I expect we have our people who annually donate to our food security and to our Christmas programs. But it’s down about 20 per cent over this time from last year at this point,” he said.
While Brushett said he has not had a look at the federal budget as yet, the organization is “concerned”
“We were hoping for a bunch of increases. We all know this budget is heavily focused on infrastructure and the future, which is great. We need that as well, but we’re kind of holding our breath, now hoping that the little funding pockets that we were able to access on an annual basis don’t get impacted too much because what a lot of people don’t realise too is like, we might get some funding from the municipal government here and the territorial government, but a lot of times that’s funding that’s directly flowing from the federal government down to these levels and then to us.”
How food banks in the N.W.T. may be impacted is uncertain.
The funding for food banks has to “trickle” through the different levels, including a fund called the Reaching Home Funds, administered in the North through the city of Yellowknife, said Brushett. The $2.5 million that the territorial government distributed to NGOs across the N.W.T., was federally based funding, he explained
“We’re not quite sure if that’s going to still remain at that $2.5 million mark, or if it’s going to reduce or we might be pleasantly surprised.”
Brushett said the organization won’t know until sometime in the new year the status of the funding.
