Question Period Note: FOOD PRICES AND FOOD SECURITY

Q1 – What is the Government doing to support Canadians who are struggling with food affordability and turning to food banks?
Q2. What actions is the Government taking to help businesses absorb supply chain disruption costs, protect Canadians from higher food prices, and strengthen domestic food production?
Q3 - Can the Government allow additional beef imports to lower prices?
Q4 - What is the Government doing to address concerns that grocers’ profits remain high?

R1 - On January 26th, the Prime Minister announced new measures to make groceries and other essentials more affordable, including the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit. The new benefit will increase the former Goods and Services Tax (GST) Credit by 25% for five years, beginning in July 2026. In addition, the Government will provide a one-time payment, equivalent to a 50% increase this year.
The Government also announced measures to improve food security and access, including a $150 million Food Security Fund, $20 million to support food banks and community food organizations through the Local Infrastructure Fund, and the development of a National Food Security Strategy.
Most recently, the Prime Minister announced that the government is temporarily suspending the federal fuel excise tax on gasoline and diesel across Canada, from April 20, 2026 until September 7, 2026. This is expected to reduce Canadians’ bills at the gas station by 10 cents per litre on regular gasoline and 4 cents on diesel.
These actions build on previously introduced measures such as the National School Food Program, the implementation of automatic deposits for federal benefits for the 2026 tax year, and the elimination of the consumer carbon tax. This is in addition to increases to the federal minimum wage, the Canada Child Benefit, Canada Workers Benefit, and Old Age Security, as well as social programming, such as more affordable child-care and the development of a national dental care program.
R2 - From April 20th to September 6th 2026, the government is suspending the federal fuel excise tax on gasoline and diesel across Canada. Cutting the tax will reduce operating costs for truckers and businesses in the food, agriculture, housing, construction, and delivery sectors, allowing businesses to hire more workers, confidently build, and export more products to global markets.
The Government is also setting aside $500 million from the Strategic Response Fund to help businesses address the costs of supply chain disruptions without passing those costs on to Canadians at the checkout line. For the same purpose, the Government will create a $150-million Food Security Fund under the existing Regional Tariff Response Initiative for small and medium enterprises and the organizations that support them.
To lower the cost of food production, the Government is introducing immediate expensing for greenhouse buildings. This allows producers to fully write off greenhouses acquired on or after November 4, 2025, and that become available for use before 2030. This measure supports increased domestic supply and investment in food production over the medium term. Moreover, to further strengthen domestic food production and improve access to affordable, nutritious food, the Government is also developing a National Food Security Strategy.
R3 - Beef and veal imports into Canada have continued to rise in recent years, climbing 15% in volume from 216,000 tonnes in 2024 to 248,000 tonnes in 2025. Despite increases in imports, beef and veal prices have continued to rise. It is important to note that beef and veal prices are similarly high amongst our key trading partners, who are also experiencing high demand for beef products, relative to supply.
R4 - The Government of Canada believes that competition is critical to ensuring a vibrant grocery sector. To this end, through the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, 2023 and the Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023, the Government introduced changes to the Competition Act to help promote competition in all markets, including food supply chains and retail grocery. This includes strengthening merger review to prevent undue market concentration, broadening the reach of the law in addressing abusive conduct by dominant players that stifles competition, as well as collaborative conduct.
Moreover, the new National Food Security Strategy will also include measures to implement unit price labelling and support the work of the Competition Bureau in monitoring and enforcing competition in the market, including food supply chains.

Food Price Inflation
Consumer price inflation reflects the final price consumers pay, including discounts and taxes. According to the latest monthly Consumer Price Index data for April 2026, price increases for food purchased from stores (groceries) was 3.8%, above headline inflation (+2.8). Restaurant price inflation was 3.0%.
Year-over-year inflation varied across categories, including eggs (-2.4%), fresh fruit (-0.5%), dairy (+1.9%), bakery products (+3.4%), and fresh vegetables (+4.1%). Price changes varied across meat products, with higher inflation for beef (+12.5%) compared to pork (+9.4%), processed meat (+6.5%), and chicken (+2.6%). Price increases for edible fats and oils have continued to decline (-3.8%) after their consistent double-digit inflation over the past three years.
Grocery price increases varied across the country. Across the provinces, prices grew the slowest in Prince Edward Island (+2.1%). Prices rose the most in Manitoba (+4.8%), Saskatchewan (+4.4%), and Alberta (+4.4%). For the territorial capitals, prices increased more in Yellowknife (+3.6%) than in Whitehorse (+2.4%), and no data is available for Iqaluit.
As reported by the OECD, as of March 2026, Canada’s year-over-year grocery inflation was 4.4%, above the G7 average (+2.3%). Grocery (food) inflation was lower in Germany (+1.3%), France (+1.9), the United States (+1.9%), Italy (+2.8%), Japan (+3.3%) and the United Kingdom (+3.7%).
Milk Prices
Effective February 1st, 2026, the Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) increased the farmgate price of milk by 2.32% based on the annual review of milk prices that was conducted in October 2025. The CDC calculates the price of milk at the farm using the National Pricing Formula, a pricing mechanism that was determined by the industry. It considers variations in dairy farmers’ costs of production and inflation, as well as other external factors. The last farmgate price increases were 2.2% in 2023 and 1.77% in 2024. It was adjusted by a very slight decrease of 0.02% in 2025.
Regulating the price of milk is one of the elements of the supply management system for dairy. However, only the price of milk that farmers get is regulated. With the exception of fluid milk in some provinces, the retail price of dairy products is not regulated in Canada.
Retail prices for dairy products paid by consumers are impacted by other factors including the balance between supply and demand, seasonality, and costs throughout the supply chain related to processing, transportation, distribution, and packaging.
Pork and Beef Prices
Greater transparency on pork and beef reference pricing is on the forward agenda of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food (AGRI). The motion highlights concerns over reliance on U.S. reference prices, potential distortions in the supply chain, and the need for fair revenue distribution. Price transparency remains a concern for producers, who face challenges accessing consistent domestic data on wholesale meat values. These concerns are not directly linked to consumer prices but rather to ensuring producers receive a fair price. Middle East War and Food Prices
Countries in the Middle East are key exporters of oil and fertilizer. Since the start of the war in the Middle East, prices for oil and fertilizer have increased rapidly due to uncertainty, supply disruptions, and transportation blockages. Higher oil prices affect every stage of the agri-food value chain and can raise concerns that grocery inflation will increase.
Overall, while there is likely to be some upward pressure on food prices, costs of fertilizer and transportation fuel represent only a very small fraction of the grocery store price of most food items. The net impact on food prices is, therefore, expected to be modest.
2026 Food Price Forecast
Canada’s 16th annual Food Price Report, jointly developed by lead author Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and several Canadian universities (Dalhousie, Saint Mary’s, PEI, Cape Breton, Laval, Guelph, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia), projects that food prices will rise by between 4%-6% in 2026, costing a family of four almost $1000 more than last year. The report is a forecast based on the current and historical economic environment, and what actually transpires may be different.
Meat, largely driving by soaring beef prices, showed the highest inflation rate (+8.5%) of any food category in 2025. With cattle herds reaching their lowest number since 1988, persistent droughts in Western Canada limiting herd growth, and rising costs of feed, fuel and other inputs, there has been limited growth in Canada’s beef production.
Climate change and weather events have also become a growing concern for both domestic and global agricultural producers. Consumers in Canada have seen the cost of certain imports such as coffee and tea, cocoa and many fruits and vegetables, increase significantly due to weather-related challenges in other countries.
On November 20th, 2025, Dalhousie University also released the Fall 2025 edition of the Canadian Food Sentiment Index, a national survey on how Canadians think and feel about food affordability, access, and trust. The survey finds that affordability remains Canadians’ top concern, with food cited by more than four in five respondents as the leading cost pressure, outweighing utilities, housing, and household supplies combined. While support for Canadian-made foods is rising, declining trust in major grocers is driving calls for stronger supply-chain action, including proposals to cap grocery retailers’ profits by the National Farmers Union.
Food Insecurity in Canada
Food insecurity is the inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so due to income. According to the 2023 Canadian Income Survey, 25.5% of people (10.0 million) reported living in food insecure households in 2023/24, up from 22.9% the previous year. Food insecurity is higher in the territories, with 37.4% of the population reporting food insecurity.
Food Banks Canada’s HungerCount 2025, a point in time snapshot, reported close to 2.2 million food bank visits in March 2025, up 5% from March 2024. The number of visits has doubled (up 99.4%) since March 2019. One third of visits were represented by children. Each ‘visit’ represents each person in the household, so a parent with two children would represent three visits. About 40% of households using food banks rely on social assistance as their main source of income, however, the share of households who rely on employment income has risen since the pandemic.

 
Government Actions Related to Affordability and Price Transparency
On October 10th, 2025, the Prime Minister announced new measures to lower costs for Canadians, including:
• Starting automatic deposits for federal benefits for the 2026 tax year that will reach up to 5.5 million low-income Canadians by the 2028 tax year. The CRA will automatically file these individuals’ taxes to ensure they receive government benefits they qualify for, such as the GST/HST credit, the Canada Child Benefit, the Canada Disability Benefit, and more – including benefits that these Canadians may not be aware they are entitled to.
• Making the National School Food Program permanent to provide meals for up to 400,000 children. This program ensures kids are fed healthy meals at school and saves families with two children $800 per year on groceries. By making it permanent, the program will work with provinces, territories, and Indigenous partners to expand the program into more schools across Canada.
Between 2023 and 2025, the following initiatives related to grocery affordability and price transparency were undertaken:
• Temporary GST/HST break from December 14, 2024, to February 15, 2025, making virtually all food, as well as purchases at restaurants, tax-free.
• Addressing shrinkflation through the Office of Consumer Affairs, which launched research projects to investigate price inflation and harmful business practices.
• Amending the Competition Act to enhance competition, including in the grocery sector, by giving power to the Competition Bureau to crack down on unfair practices.
• Launching a National School Food Program, to provide meals for up to 400,000 kids each year and fund infrastructure to support school food programming.
• Investing further in the Food Policy for Canada to strengthen Canada’s food systems including $62.9 million over three years to renew and expand the Local Food Infrastructure Fund.
• Food Price Data Hub: Statistics Canada, in collaboration with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, developed the Food Price Data Hub to provide timely access to the information Canadians need to better understand food price fluctuations. The Food Price Data Hub (the Hub) uses existing data from the Agency which has been consolidated into a new, all-in-one tool to make it easier for Canadians to get an overall snapshot of food prices and trends.
Parliamentary Activities Related to Food Prices and Affordability:
• June 13, 2023: Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food releases Tenth Report entitled Grocery Affordability: Examining Rising Food Costs in Canada. Report makes 13 recommendations to address the impacts and drivers of food price inflation across the supply chain, including improving relations and competition across the food supply chain.
o October 5, 2023: the Government tabled its response
• May 23, 2024: Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food releases Eighteenth Report entitled A Call to Action: How Government and Industry Can Fight Back Against Food Price Volatility. Report makes 10 recommendations to address ongoing challenges in the Canadian food supply chain, including improving competition across the food supply chain and recommended actions to assist Canadians experiencing food insecurity.
o September 9, 2024: the Government tabled its response
• May 26, 2025: Liberal MP Gurbux Saini introduces Private Member’s Bill C-226, An Act To Establish A National Framework To Improve Food Price Transparency. The bill focuses on improving food price transparency, including the establishment of national standards for the grocery retail sector on unit pricing and transparency regarding price increases.
o April 22, 2026: Bill was read for the second time in the House of Commons and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for consideration.

• The Government of Canada recognizes that affordability remains a critical issue for Canadians, with food prices rising faster than overall inflation for the 21st consecutive month.
• In 2026, the Government announced new measures to make groceries and other essentials more affordable, including the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, and a temporary suspension of the federal fuel excise tax, putting more money back in Canadians’ pockets.
• We are committed to improving food security and access with new measures, including creating a $150-million Food Security Fund, providing $20 million to support food banks and community food organizations, and developing a National Food Security Strategy.
• The Government will also support businesses to address the costs of supply chain disruptions through dedicated funding in the Strategic Response Fund, and by introducing immediate expensing for greenhouse buildings.
• These efforts build on previous actions that the Government has taken, including making amendments to the Competition Act to support competition in the grocery sector.