Ontario students went back to school this month for the final year of a three-year provincial supply of free menstrual products. The products are made available through Ontario’s Menstrual Equity Initiative, which the province renewed in 2024 with a donation of 23 million products and 1,380 new dispensers for school washrooms.

The initiative responds to “period poverty,” the difficulty in affording or accessing menstrual products. In a 2023 national survey, one in four Canadian women said they had chosen between buying menstrual products and paying for essentials such as food or rent in the past year. Among adolescents in Nova Scotia, two-thirds reported difficulty affording products, and about 40 per cent had missed school, sports or social activities as a result.

Free products in schools reach students only when someone keeps the dispensers filled. We set out to measure how often girls reported reliable access to period products at school.

In 2025, we surveyed 863 girls in Grades 5 to 12 who had already had their first period. The survey was administered in a mid-sized, mostly rural school board in eastern Ontario. The board partnered with us to evaluate its own implementation of the initiative.

Only one-third of girls that we surveyed (33 per cent) said the dispensers........

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