Food bank usage is on the rise across Canada. Even with a booming economy there are more and more Canadians losing their housing and having to make use of emergency shelters. The provincial response to the federal government's removal of all funding for new social housing and the growing needs of low-income households varies from province to province. In the province of British Columbia in Western Canada, the New Democratic Party government, which is much more aligned to social democratic ideology than the other three major political parties in Canada, has continued to try to create social housing without federal government support. On the other hand, in Ontario, where there is a Conservative government, not only is there no new social housing being created, but social assistance has also been slashed by 21.6 percent.
Municipalities are in an awkward yet important situation in Canada.
As the most immediate level of government to the people, they are under pressure to find ways of supporting social housing regardless of the political affiliation of the provincial government or policy shifts in the federal government. There has been mixed reaction from municipalities across Canada on how to deal with affordable housing. Some have chosen to avoid dealing with the issue. Others have decided to take on an advocacy role, pressuring the federal government and their respective provincial governments to become involved in a larger scale in affordable and social housing production, but they have yet to experience any large-scale success. Others still have chosen to focus their energy on establishing methods of ensuring affordable housing provision without upper tier government support.