The Canada Food Price Report just issued reveals that a quarter of Canadian households are living in food insecurity and that they will be forced to spend nearly one thousand dollars more on groceries in 2026. This means that hunger in Canada will continue to rise as more Canadians will be forced to skip meals or sacrifice to keep their children fed.
The report notes that only four food conglomerates control 72 per cent of the grocery market in Canada. New Democrats have long called for effective action to police anti-competitive practices caused by this monopoly. We reiterate our call for mandatory standards to ensure free competition and fight collusion in price-setting, and for the government to properly enforce the Grocery Code of Conduct.
I just don’t see anything that could change the direction of this trend anytime soon. The only thing I’ve heard that could is a national public grocer as proposed by some voices in the NDP. Until that or some other radical solution is implemented, food cost has nowhere to go but up. But no one else is proposing anything radical.
