Question Period Note: NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY STRATEGY

Q1 – Why does Canada need a National Food Security Strategy?
Q2 – What does the Strategy focus on?
Q3 – How will the Strategy help make food more affordable for Canadians?
Q4 – What is the Government doing to provide immediate relief to Canadians at the checkout counter?

R1 - Canada needs a National Food Security Strategy to advance a coordinated approach to address the structural causes undermining a reliable and affordable food supply. This includes addressing a lack of retail competition, limited domestic processing capacity, dependence on imports for fruits and vegetables, and barriers that increase production costs and limit the distribution of Canadian foods.
R2 - The Strategy is designed to improve affordability and access while strengthening food self-sufficiency through increased domestic production and reducing reliance on imports. It does so by investing in food terminals and food hubs to enhance supply chain efficiency and lower costs, strengthening competition enforcement to address market concentration and help bring down prices, supporting food processing to increase domestic capacity and innovation, expanding controlled environment agriculture to enable year-round production of fruits and vegetables, and streamlining regulations to limit duplication and support interprovincial trade.
R3 - The Strategy will address the structural pressures that contribute to higher costs by increasing competition and improving supply chains, processing more of what we grow, increasing domestic production, and reducing inefficiencies. This includes giving Canadians more choice and lowering prices through increased competition, investing in food infrastructure to help producers get products to markets more easily, growing more fruits and vegetables year-round to reduce exposure to global disruptions and price volatility, and cutting unnecessary red tape to reduce costs and delay across supply chains.
R4 - The Government of Canada has already introduced measures to provide immediate relief by helping bring down costs and putting more money back in Canadians’ pockets. Some of these supports include the Canadian Groceries and Essentials Benefit and making the National School Food Program permanent to provide healthy meals to more children. Additional funding was also provided to support food banks and community organizations through the Local Food Infrastructure Fund. While these measures help ease immediate pressures for households, the Strategy focuses on structural changes within Canada’s food system to address the underlying drivers of high food costs.

Canadians continue to face challenges related to affordability and access driven by global and domestic pressures. Food price inflation continues to be higher than general inflation, creating strains on households across the country. In response to these pressures, on January 26, 2026, the Prime Minister announced a series of initiatives to address food affordability and strengthen domestic food system capacity. This included:
• Making the National School Food Program permanent, supporting up to 400,000 more children annually and saving participating families an average of $800 per year.
• Creating the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, providing support to more than 12 million Canadians, with payments of up to $950 for individuals and $1,890 for families with two children.
• Investing $20 million through the Community Support Stream of the Local Food Infrastructure Fund to support food banks and food organizations across Canada.
• Enabling immediate expensing for new or expanded greenhouse construction.
• Allocating $500 million from the Strategic Response Fund to help businesses manage supply chain disruptions and $150 million for a new Food Security Fund to provide targeted support for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and related organizations.
Finally, the commitment to develop a National Food Security Strategy was amongst the measures announced in January.
National Food Security Strategy
The Strategy is designed to give Canadians more choice, more control, and more Canada through more locally produced food on store shelves. It outlines measures under four pillars: Competition, Processing, Production, and Regulations.
1. Ensure competitive prices, choice, and affordability
o $1 billion in new funds over 10 years for a new Food-Link Fund to drive more competitiveness in a highly concentrated grocery retail market, lower food costs and benefit consumers, independent grocers and producers.
o Ensure a more competitive marketplace that helps keep prices lower for Canadians through $11.8 million in new ongoing funding for the Competition Bureau and $1.1 million in new ongoing funding for Competition Tribunal to investigate, litigate and adjudicate cases of anti competitive behaviour.
o Support young farmers by making changes to the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act, which will make it easier for them to take over the family farm.
o Launch a task force to examine potential supports for intergenerational farm transfers, to better reflect the structure of modern farming operations.
2. Process food closer to where it’s grown to increase efficiency and create new jobs
o Fund industry-led projects to improve resilience, boost domestic production, and adopt new technologies. Tailored approach for the agri-food sector:
o $350 million in existing funding under the Strategic Response Fund (SRF) for agri-food projects with contributions up to $50 million
o $150 million in SRF existing funding to support food-related national innovation ecosystems.
o $150 million in new funding to the Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program for agri-food project contributions up to $10 million
o Support food businesses and organizations with $150 million for a new Food Security Fund under the Regional Tariff Response Initiative to expand domestic processing capacity, food production, storage, and distribution across Canada.
o Invest in SMEs across the innovation continuum by providing $100 million to Canada’s Global Innovation Clusters to establish a Collaborative Food Innovation Fund.
o Build on existing investment attraction work by providing tailored outreach and incentive packages to 15 to 20 multinational firms to encourage them to make substantial investments in Canada.
o Support high-potential food and agriculture projects by attracting $1 billion in new investment through Farm Credit Canada (FCC), building on FCC’s existing $2 billion investment in Canadian food and agriculture innovation and a previously announced $5 billion commitment from private sector investors.
3. Grow fruits and vegetables year-round to reduce reliance on imported food
o $750 million in funding for greenhouses and controlled environment agriculture will reduce our dependence on other countries and strengthen Canada’s ability to grow fruits and vegetables year-round, including in northern and rural communities.
4. Regulatory approaches that reduce costs and grow the economy while protecting health and safety
o Eliminate unnecessary delays to product approvals to ensure farmers have the tools they need to grow our food (seed, feed, fertilizers, veterinary biologics, and crop protection products).
o Reduce regulatory burden and make it easier for provincially-licensed food establishments to trade interprovincially by providing hands-on guidance to help them meet federal requirements.
o Advance a targeted regulatory amendment to the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations to address where the lack of slaughter capacity is creating food security or economic issues in communities.

• Backed by more than $3 billion in investments, Canada’s first-ever National Food Security Strategy will strengthen domestic food production while improving access to affordable, nutritious food for Canadians.
• The Strategy combines targeted public investments, long-term financing, and regulatory changes to drive new investment in Canada’s food system.
• It will help grow, move, and process more food here at home by strengthening supply chains, reducing unnecessary costs, creating jobs, and giving Canadians more affordable choices on the shelf.
• By building more capacity in Canada, the Strategy will make our food system more resilient, more competitive, and less dependent on other countries.