Evidence of meeting #52 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was costs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve.
Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I don't have much time. For this second round, I will now turn to you, Mr. Charlebois.
It is true that rising food prices are an issue that has also been studied by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
This isn't the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, but I still want to ask you what measure could help and have an impact. Is the lack of competition among the major players in the food industry a factor? There is also the whole issue of dynamic pricing, a phenomenon we've seen emerge. Should the government take action to legislate against this practice? Could it actually help lower food prices?
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
That's a very good question. We actually need to stabilize the system as a whole. To do that, we really need to invest more in food processing. That's really the strategic cornerstone for Canada, and it's what's missing. The food processing sector is struggling. That's less of an issue in Quebec because 70% of agricultural production is already processed there, but that's not the case elsewhere in the country.
Recently, the government made two announcements that I think are quite important.
First, there was funding for food processing to the tune of, I believe, $1 billion. That's really a step in the right direction.
Next, the other measure that I think will make a big difference—especially for small and medium-sized businesses—is what's known as the productivity mega deduction, which was announced recently. There are many small food processing businesses that can't afford to automate their operations and become more productive. So I think this measure will go a long way toward making food processing more competitive. It will help stabilize food prices and inflation in the long term.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
I have 20 seconds left.
You also mentioned the tax credit for producers. Could that help food banks?
Mr. Hetherington, perhaps you'd like to add something on this topic.
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Absolutely. Ontario is a model. I hope to see the other provinces follow suit.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Larouche.
We go now to Mr. Reynolds for five minutes.
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for coming here today. We really appreciate your coming and providing input on this obviously very important issue.
I want to start with you, Mr. Hetherington.
A school food program is a short-term solution to what I think is a bigger issue. Obviously, people are hungry today and they're being fed today, which is good, but for food inflation overall, having the government feed our people is probably not the best permanent solution. That is what I'm really getting at. Food inflation is one of the major root causes, and cost of living is a major root cause. You mentioned that food bank usage has increased 340% since 2019. That's incredible.
Mr. Charlebois said something interesting. He said that food banks exist due to failed policy. I've never heard that before, actually. With the drastic increase in food bank usage since 2019, what policy changes should the government make to rein in food inflation?
Chief Executive Officer, Daily Bread Food Bank
Food is about $350 per person per month for the average Canadian. Inflation of a few per cent has a profound impact on low-income Canadians. It has that effect because of the systemic reasons why they are low-income. That would be precarious employment. It would be income supports that are wholly inadequate. It would be on the expense side of things, the lack of affordable housing. Those are the main policy drivers that result in individuals coming to food banks.
When it comes to food inflation, you want to set up the systems that allow for great competition to occur. You want to make sure that there are tax credits available, that there is the lowering of fuel prices either on a temporary basis or not when there is an acute challenge to the system. These are all the different levers that are available. There's also the new lever that we have, which I am hopeful the government will look at, which is a tax credit for those who are low-income Canadians who are renting.
In the United States, there are income deductions available for mortgage interest. We would love to target that a little bit more to those who need it the most, which would be renters and making the payments that they make on rent tax deductible. It allows for a targeted approach that will result in fewer people having to come to food banks and a reduction in the currently one in four Canadians who are food insecure.
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you.
Mr. Charlebois, you mentioned something which I found very interesting, price volatility in our food market. Has that changed over the last five years—the sharp increase was since 2019—or has it always been that way in Canada?
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
It's actually getting worse.
It really started back in 2008 with the financial crisis. If you look at the data supplied by Statistics Canada, you'll see that food inflation and inflation were progressing in lockstep until 2008. That's when there was a break between the two. Since then, we've seen a huge difference between food inflation, the food price index, prices and the CPI, in general. We've never recovered since 2008. It's only getting worse due to several factors like, for example, climate change, geopolitics, energy costs, currency fluctuations, and so on and so forth.
We've never been focused on granting some immunity to our food system in Canada against all of these factors that do bring more volatility. That's why I've always argued for many years now that food manufacturing is a solution. Ontario is a good example of how food manufacturing has been undermined. Most people talk about cars, but food manufacturing is the top manufacturing sector in the province. We've never given a whole lot of attention to manufacturing until now.
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
How much of our food in Canada that we consume is from Canada, made or grown here?
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
With regard to retail, I would say probably about 50% to 60%.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.
We'll now conclude this first hour with Ms. Harrison for five minutes.
October 29th, 2026 / 11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Emma Harrison Liberal Peterborough, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hetherington, are you familiar with our national food strategy?
Liberal
Emma Harrison Liberal Peterborough, ON
That's excellent. A lot of the national food strategy speaks to what Mr. Charlebois was just speaking about: the structural problems we have with processing capacity.
I'd like to focus on storage. I think my colleague across the table, Mr. Genuis, mentioned this with transportation costs. It's about our development of food hubs and making sure that local food stays local. In the crisis that we're in right now, do food banks have the ability to store food in our biggest harvest seasons when there is a large surplus of food? Do food banks have the capabilities of actually storing and having cold storage for apples, squash and all these things that are being produced and harvested right now?
Chief Executive Officer, Daily Bread Food Bank
It varies across the country.
I do want to acknowledge that just last Friday the government announced $10 million that went to both Second Harvest and Food Banks Canada as part of that strategy to secure locations and infrastructure in order to accommodate things just like that.
Liberal
Emma Harrison Liberal Peterborough, ON
Yes, it was an excellent announcement.
We have so much work to do. We've already spoken to the housing component, and our government is tackling a lot of these structural problems that are leading to.... We are truly trying to control what we can control. We can't control the war in Iran. The diesel spike is completely out of our control. However, we can start to work towards domestic processing capacity, as Mr. Charlebois just brought up. We do export a ton of raw goods and then buy them back as value-added products. The Canadian Food Innovation Network was also just granted $50 million by our government to start doing more research and development so that we can, in fact, build true food sovereignty in Canada.
With regard to what you're facing, what your experience is, do you think the national food strategy goes far enough to build up long-term solutions to the problems that you're seeing today?
Chief Executive Officer, Daily Bread Food Bank
Well, I think there are great opportunities ahead. I mean, what we are talking about does make sense, particularly from a food sovereignty perspective. I bemoan the fact that the Daily Bread Food Bank is right beside what used to be the Campbell's soup factory. If you buy soup, you don't buy it from Canada. Some of the raw materials might have been Canadian grown, but they are shipped to either Mexico or the United States for processing. There's the fact that we don't have the manufacturing of tin cans the way we should so that we can be food sovereign. That food security is about national security, and it is incredibly important to continue that investment.
Liberal
Emma Harrison Liberal Peterborough, ON
In my life outside of this, I farm beef in my riding of Peterborough. With my neighbours around me, I joke sometimes that all we need is a dairy farm, and then we could probably be closed off to the world and be okay.
There's such a massive surplus. My neighbours produce apples. They have an incredible surplus right now that they can't possibly harvest. There's also the transportation piece and the storage piece. They do donate so much food, so I love that you pointed out the tax credit that's available in Ontario for farmers who do donate food. Kawartha Food Share is located in my riding.
There's some work that needs to be done. For instance, if I had a whole cow that I could give to them, there are some issues with the expiry dates and things like that, things that don't happen when we send them to the abattoir and they come back, so we cannot currently donate beef.
With regard to your point, farmers want to do this, and ranchers want to do this. Our producers are some of the most giving people around, but there are some structural constraints to donation. Would you like to speak to what we could do to remove those barriers?
Chief Executive Officer, Daily Bread Food Bank
The first thing is that we have to address those three fundamental things through policy: affordable housing, precarious employment and income supports. Yes, we're going to make policy change, but we have to feed that need now.
On that element, this is where the federal tax credit for farmers can come into forceful and fulsome effect. I think this would be unanimous in the House, because it makes radical common sense to say yes to farmers, “We are going to make sure you do well by doing good.” That makes sense. It has worked in Ontario. It has worked in three other provinces to make sure food gets to individuals who need it. We have that opportunity, very quickly, to make it happen here federally.
Liberal
Emma Harrison Liberal Peterborough, ON
That's excellent, but I don't know if I have another one.
Thank you very much for the work you do and for coming to committee and taking the time to be here to answer questions and guide us in the right direction. This is something that all of government cares deeply about. There's a lot of work to get done, but we are tackling some of these major issues. Testimony from you is really critical to making sure we all get this right.