Critics say Liberals’ Food Security Strategy tackles national risks, not Canadians’ hunger

With parliamentarians home for the summer barbecue circuit, Liberal ministers have spent the past week and a half reheating the prime minister’s newly announced Food Security Strategy aimed at strengthening the domestic food supply chain to insulate it from international price shocks. But critics say the Liberals aren’t doing enough to address the root causes of Canadian food insecurity, and the immediate affordability crisis.

Daily Bread Food Bank CEO Neil Hetherington told The Hill Times the strategy's long-term objective is better understood as a national security initiative rather than an affordability plan.

"It is fundamentally important that Canada be able to grow, produce, and package its own food, and that we've got a really healthy, competitive environment," Hetherington said in a June 24 interview, adding that he welcomes efforts to protect Canada's food system from future international disruptions.

"The question for me is: will this decrease the lineups at food banks? And the answer is 'no, it won't,'" he said. "That doesn't make it bad. It's just that its intended purpose, from an affordability perspective, might not meet that mark."

Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.) unveiled the strategy on June 11 at the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto, which distributes nearly two billion pounds of fruits and vegetables annually across Canada. Standing alongside Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Heath MacDonald (Malpeque, P.E.I.), parliamentary secretary Sophie Chatel (Pontiac–Kitigan Zibi, Que.), and Liberal MP James Maloney (Etobicoke–Lakeshore, Ont.), the prime minister committed $3.2-billion over the next decade "to grow more at home, process more at home, and feed more Canadians with Canadian food."

"Overreliance on foreign markets means that every global shock—foreign conflict, drought, and tariffs—shows up directly at grocery stores across this country," Carney said. "This strategy will tackle the problems in our food system through targeted measures and investments to help create a more affordable, sustainable, and resilient food supply chain in Canada."

Included in the strategy is a $1-billion investment in a new Food Link Fund to support wholesale marketplaces and food hubs. This aims to create more choice and competition, including by expanding the Ontario Food Terminal before the end of 2026, opening two new terminals, and establishing or expanding 10 smaller food hubs by the end of 2028.

Carney also said the government’s efforts to modernize the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act will “crack down” on surveillance pricing, where companies use consumers' personal information and online footprints to change prices for individual shoppers.

The New Democrats have previously called for a ban on the practice, and described the strategy as a “long-overdue acknowledgment from the federal government that too many Canadians are struggling to afford the food they need.”

“It is encouraging to see the government finally adopting ideas that New Democrats have championed for years,” NDP MP Gord Johns (Courtenay–Alberni, B.C.), his party's agriculture and agri-food critic, wrote in a statement on June 15.

“We welcome measures to strengthen competition, challenge the dominance of giant grocery chains, support local food infrastructure, and promote Canadian food sovereignty,” Johns wrote. “But the ultimate success of any food security strategy will be judged by how well it addresses the everyday emergency Canadians face in just putting food on the table.”

In an on-background technical briefing with reporters before the announcement, a senior government official said the strategy does not set a target price for a basket of goods, nor define what counts as affordable food.

Since the food strategy's launch, Liberal ministers have continued promoting the initiative through a series of regional announcements. MacDonald and Chatel highlighted the strategy during a June 19 event in Gatineau, Que., followed by announcements in Alberta from Emergency Management and Community Resilience Minister Eleanor Olszewski (Edmonton Centre, Alta.) and MP Corey Hogan (Calgary Confederation, Alta.) on June 24, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree (Scarborough–Guildwood–Rouge Park, Ont.) on June 26 in the Greater Toronto Area, Secretary of State for International Development Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, B.C.) on June 29 in Metro Vancouver, and by Secretary of State for Defence Procurement Stephen Fuhr (Kelowna, B.C.) in his riding on June 30.

“The National Food Security Strategy is about giving Canadians greater choice, control, and access to affordable, locally produced food," reads MacDonald's statement in each of the accompanying press releases. "Through this made-in-Canada approach, we will be able to process more of what our farmers grow, creating new jobs, economic opportunity and more food self-sufficiency.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Battle River–Crowfoot, Alta.) argued the Liberals are blaming international instability for a problem largely created by domestic economic policy.

Speaking at the National Press Theatre on June 25, Poilievre said it may be "comforting" for the Liberals to attribute Canada's "worst food price inflation in the G7" to global conflicts, but that the comparison does not withstand scrutiny.

"If that were the case, then we would see the same food inflation in the other G7 countries, but we don't," Poilievre said in response to a question from The Hill Times, adding that, alongside “high Liberal taxes right through the food chain ... driving up the cost of food,” and the remaining interprovincial trade barriers, the “untold story…is the weak loonie.”

On June 24, the Canadian dollar fell to its lowest point since the early weeks of United States President Donald Trump’s trade war in the summer of 2025, hovering just above US$0.70, down from US$0.74 in late January.

“Food prices, fertilizer prices, and fuel prices are all internationally determined, and when your dollar is weak, everything costs more,” Poilievre said. “This is the consequence of Liberal policies that have weakened our economy, and given us the only recession in the G7.”

On May 29, Statistics Canada reported that the Canadian economy had stalled for the second quarter in a row, with an annualized rate of GDP expenditure declining by 0.1 per cent for the first quarter of 2026. That follows a real GDP decline of one per cent in the fourth quarter of 2025, meeting the technical definition of a recession, though economists do not universally accept that assessment.

Pointing to statistics from Food Banks Canada indicating that one in four Canadians—nearly 10 million people—are struggling to afford food, Hetherington said the insecurity is primarily driven by inadequate incomes and unaffordable housing rather than grocery store competition or domestic food processing costs.

“To decrease those lineups, there has to be a strategy for then and now,” Hetherington said, noting that the new strategy and $13-billion investment in Build Canada Homes will cover the longer-term issues if they can achieve their stated goals, but “if the government wants to make a difference now, food insecurity is an income issue.”

To address the immediate crisis of affordability, the federal government points to its recent actions, such as the $20-million investment for a new Community Support Stream delivered through the Local Food Infrastructure Fund, the $216.6-million for the National School Food Program launched in the fall of 2025, and the newly rebranded Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit GST/HST credit.

However, Hetherington said that while those measures are welcome, the benefit is a repayment to low-income Canadians for taxes they have already paid. The food program’s impact, he added, is best measured by the summer food bank lines when children are out of school.

“If you want to make a tangible difference for low-income families and decrease lineups at food banks, enhance the Canada Disability Benefit, and make rent a tax-deductible expense,” Hetherington said. “If you change that, you can change lives.”

The government estimates roughly 456,000 Canadians access the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB), receiving a maximum of $2,400 a year, but Hetherington said that amount is what most Canadians need to live on each month. Combined with provincial benefits, most recipients end up about $600 short of that poverty line, with strict clawbacks for any income that raises them above it, he added.

In response to questions from The Hill Times on Hetherington’s proposals, Poilievre said the clawbacks are a non-partisan “multi-government” issue that needs to be addressed at both the federal and provincial levels.

“There are literally hundreds of thousands of people with severe disabilities, and probably over a million with a disability of some kind that work, but the problem is they get clawed back, they get robbed of their housing, medicine, transportation, and income supports with marginal effective tax rates that often make them worse off because they earned an extra dollar,” Poilievre said. “I think we need to bring the two levels of government together and come up with a plan to rejig these programs, so that when somebody who has a disability goes and gets a job and earns an extra dollar, that they're not punished for it … we need to make work pay for people with disabilities.”

sbenson@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times