Toronto mayoral candidate Olivia Chow is promising to provide lunch to every student in Toronto schools if re-elected, a move she says could save families up to $1,800 per child annually while helping ease household grocery costs.The proposal would build on the city’s existing school food program, which was expanded under Chow’s administration to reach every school in Toronto and provide at least a mid-morning meal to approximately 330,000 students.Under the plan announced Monday, the city would gradually expand the program to include a full lunch for students, with Chow arguing the initiative would both reduce food expenses for families and eliminate the daily burden of preparing school lunches.“We will fund it the same way we funded the Morning Meal Program. We will phase it in. Test it, do our homework. We will make it a group project,” Chow said at a press conference. “We will work with the provincial and federal governments to make it happen by 2030. When we are done with morning meals and lunches in place, families can save around $1,800 a year, per kid.”The mayoral candidate tied the proposal to a decades-long effort to expand food programs in schools, noting that she and former Toronto city councillor and federal NDP leader Jack Layton advocated for universal school meals more than 30 years ago.“Back in 1990, Jack Layton and I made a plan to feed every kid in Toronto schools,” Chow said. “More than ever, school food can save families money and help kids focus on their teacher, not their hunger. We need to keep moving forward, not backwards.”Chow says universal school lunches would ease grocery costs for parentsChow’s campaign says the savings would come through reduced grocery spending and lower out-of-pocket food costs throughout the school year.The proposed lunch expansion would be rolled out in phases and funded through the same model that currently supports Toronto’s school food program, with contributions from the City of Toronto, other levels of government and private donors.If implemented, Toronto would join a growing number of jurisdictions across Canada and internationally that have expanded publicly supported school meal programs as a way to address child hunger and ease financial pressures on parents.“Prices at big grocery stores just keep rising. With a robust school food program, we can give parents some breathing room,” Chow said in a statement. “We can save families thousands of dollars a year feeding kids in school. And give parents a break on making lunch every day.”Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford said Chow’s latest campaign promise proves that she’s “out of ideas and out of gas.”“On back-to-back days, we have seen Olivia Chow’s campaign scrambling to put something in the window,” Bradford said. “… Today, she talks about a program with no idea how to fund it. No idea of the size of the scope or the expansion of that. I think she’s just throwing everything at the wall trying to see if something sticks.”Chow’s campaign says more details on implementation and timelines would be released as part of the phased rollout of the proposed lunch program.