Will we miss the big picture on Canada's food crisis?

National Observer

21-05-2025

With one in four Canadians living in food-insecure households, and grocery costs having ballooned almost 25 per cent since 2020, Canada is in a food crisis — which will get worse as we face potential trade wars and a recession. These issues demand urgent, concerted action from multiple levels of government.
How will the winning Liberal Party rise to the challenge? By analyzing their Canada Strong platform, we can assess which critical food policies the new government is likely to advance — and where food movements will need to apply pressure to secure the transformative changes we urgently need.
The good news
Let's start with the good news. The Liberal platform commits to protecting Canada's system of supply management of dairy, eggs, and poultry. We should push the Liberals to expand it to other products, like legumes and grains. This would strengthen Canada's food sovereignty and give us more leverage against Trump's aggressive tariffs.
The platform also promised to make the National School Food Plan permanent. This is great news, and we need to push for this to be universal and culturally appropriate. The platform also states that, where possible, schools should source Canadian food. This is very promising. School food can be a key lever for strengthening Canada's food systems and making them more resilient, by guaranteeing local farmers a stable source of income. In fact, all government contracts should have a mandated minimum of local procurement: from hospitals to prisons and military cafeterias. This innovative policy would be a huge step in building food sovereignty in Canada.
We also see a promise to 'replace Nutrition North'— the government's flagship policy for food security in the North. This suggests an acknowledgment that Nutrition North has failed. In recent years, a supermarket monopoly in northern communities increased its profit margins, while benefiting from Nutrition North subsidies. Instead of propping up a monopoly, they should support Indigenous food methods, like hunting and foraging, and foster retail competition by starting a public grocery store in the territories or supporting cooperative stores.
The cost of living crisis
Let's move to the most immediate problem facing Canadians: the cost-of-living crisis. The Liberals offer a few boosts and reforms to current benefit programs. But these do little to address the big issue that 60 per cent of food-insecure households have a steady source of income. Incomes are simply too low, and income supports need to be radically re-thought and expanded, not just maintained or incrementally increased. What's more, 40 per cent of Black and Indigenous households experience food insecurity, almost double the national rate. This needs to be treated as a national emergency. The government will have to act fast to address this cost-of-living crisis, shaped by structural racism, that is only going to get worse in a recession.
All government contracts should have a mandated minimum of local procurement: from hospitals to prisons and military cafeterias, writes Aaron Vansintjan
And remember when Canadians mobilized to boycott Loblaws? Corporate price-gouging and food unaffordability dominated headlines last year and united people across the political spectrum. However, there is little in the platform that promises to address this. Let's say it clearly: the Canadian food retail industry is controlled by an oligopoly. Just five companies control 80 per cent of the retail market. This has led to unfair, anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices.
The Liberal Party needs to show it is serious about tackling the problem. First, must strengthen the Competition Bureau to crack down on price-gouging and market domination by a few firms. Second, it should invest in local food infrastructure. We need more support for holistic approaches, such as agroecological, local food hubs, public markets, cooperatives, non-profit grocery stores, small- and medium-sized businesses. The Liberals already acknowledge that, when it comes to housing affordability, the market alone can't fix a market failure. The same lessons need to be applied to food affordability. This is a tremendous opportunity to link the urgent need to protect Canadian producers against trade disruption, with the need to build food sovereignty and lower the cost of living.
A broken agriculture system
The Liberal platform makes some promises to farmers, but doesn't do nearly enough to grapple with the overwhelming need in the sector. Farmers are being hit by climate change, debt, generational poverty, and sky-high agricultural rents. The current proposals amount to small change for a sector in crisis. There is a way out. Rather than penalizing farmers with an industrial carbon tax or forcing them into debt, the government should support them with training, infrastructure and buffers against risk.
For example, the National Farmers Union calls for a Canadian Farm Resilience Agency that trains farmers in low-emission practices. Other policies, such as breaking apart predatory monopolies, expanding rail networks, the right to repair, and support for young, low-income, and minority farmers would go a long way.
Notably absent from the platform is any mention of fixing the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, a bedrock of Canadian agricultural labour and rife with abuse. This program is so broken that the UN Special Rapporteur on Modern Slavery called it a 'breeding ground for contemporary slavery' in 2023. It needs serious reform to eliminate exploitation, offer clear paths to citizenship for temporary workers, and improve income and labour conditions on farms.
Conclusion: missing the whole
The Liberal platform contains promising commitments to supply management, school food, and reforming Nutrition North. But there is not a clear, big picture and little acknowledgment that the food system needs an overhaul. It misses the immense potential to make Canada stronger: against trade wars, climate change and poverty. This would need to cross departmental boundaries.
For example, weak local food infrastructure, poor retail competition, a cost-of-living crisis, and a broken temporary worker program are interconnected and multi-sector problems. We need a coordinated, cabinet-level approach to create policy coherence and a cohesive national food strategy. Without a whole-of-government approach, even the positive elements of the platform amount to minor tweaks, missing the potential for system change.
The Buy Canadian movement has shown that the public gets it: people want more widely available, local food and do not trust oligopolies to deliver it. People also need higher incomes to be able to afford healthy and culturally-appropriate diets. Right now, the Liberal platform does not meet the public's desire for change. At this moment of global instability, food insecurity and price inflation, we need the Liberals to deliver — our future depends on it.