Healthy foods are becoming increasingly difficult for low-income households to afford as food prices soar, according to a new regional report.

The cost of feeding a family of four a healthy diet in Waterloo Region this year is $195 a week, up just over five per cent from 2014 - a jump of more than $40 a month. In the past five years, the cost has risen 13.5 per cent.

"I think it really does illustrate the challenge for the families who want to feed their children well," said Sharlene Sedgwick Walsh, regional director of healthy living, planning and promotion.

Despite more than a decade of yearly rate increases and small policy adjustments, people who rely on social assistance are hungrier today than in 1995, when the former Mike Harris Conservative government gutted the province's welfare system, according to a new report.

Officially, inflation since then has been 45 per cent. But when Toronto social policy expert John Stapleton took Tsubouchi's sample shopping list to the grocery store recently, he noticed the cost of the so-called "welfare diet" had spiked by 107 per cent, to $189.91.

Meantime, welfare rates - including November's 3.8-per-cent hike for singles on Ontario Works - have increased by just 31 per cent, to $681 a month.

Imagine a Canada where everyone has enough money to meet their basic needs all the time, no matter what.

Sound like some socialist utopia? It's not.

It's called a basic income guarantee, or BIG, and some of its biggest supporters come from the right of the political spectrum. Why? Because it makes good economic sense.

It's a simple idea that has been discussed for a number of years and even piloted in Dauphin, Man. from 1974-79.

The Manitoba experiment revealed people fare much better when they have a secure income. From a decrease in hospitalization rates, less domestic violence, higher secondary school completion rates to a decline in teenage pregnancy, a basic income offers people stability that translates into improved social and health outcomes.

The cost of food is rising, making it harder for the region's most vulnerable to access healthy food options.

According to a new report, released at the region's community services meeting last week, the cost of the Nutritious Food Basket in the region for a family of four increased more than five per cent last year. It outpaced inflation by five times. The total cost is now almost $195 a week.

In the last five years, the food basket, which is a surveillance tool used by the region to look at food security, increased 13.5 per cent.

Ten years ago, this city's powerful and the poor sat down and agreed to tackle poverty together. The needle has twitched some, but it hasn't really moved. But those committed to poverty reduction are in it for the long haul. And they insist the groundwork has been laid.

The Spectator has launched a seven-part series into how poverty has - and has not - changed in Hamilton.

Join Nick Saul as he explores the contradictions of our current food system and the persistence of inadequate food charity as a response to growing hunger and inequality. He argues that it's not only possible, it's essential to create a more just society in which everyone has a healthy, dignified place at the table.

Date: November 12, 2015 | 6:30pm - 8:30pm

Location: Verity, 111 Queen St E, Toronto, ON M5C 1S2

Cost: Complimentary

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