Canada needs to strengthen food security before the next tariff shock

Canada is once again in the middle of a trade war with the United States. Tariffs, retaliation, and negotiations dominate the headlines. Governments are focused on protecting Canadian businesses and workers, and understandably so.

But there is another part of this conversation that is concentrated at grocery stores and around our dinner tables: what happens to Canadians when the cost of putting food on the table becomes even harder to manage?

Having spent decades working in the food charity sector, I have observed that when food prices rise, people hardly have extra money on which to fall back. Instead, they cut back by buying less nutritious food, skipping meals, and increasingly turning to community groups for help.

Unfortunately, those organizations are already telling us they cannot keep up.

Second Harvest's latest research, based on a survey of nearly 1,500 non-profit organizations, shows just how stretched the charitable food sector has become. Nearly 90 per cent of groups have seen demand for food increase over the past year. Around one in three has had to turn people away, and one in five is considering closing or reducing programs.

Tariffs do not automatically mean higher prices for every food item. But they can increase costs and uncertainty across the food supply chain, from ingredients and packaging to transportation and distribution. 

But we should not look at this only as a problem created by tariffs.

The bigger question is whether Canada has built a food system resilient enough to withstand them.

The answer is that we have work to do.

Canada has already recognized this challenge. The federal government's National Food Security Strategy identifies external shocks, including tariffs and geopolitical developments, as vulnerabilities for this country's food system. It also recognizes the need to strengthen domestic production and processing, and to improve the infrastructure that helps get food where it needs to go.

That is an important step. But resilience cannot stop at the farm gate or the processing plant.

We also need to ask what happens to food once it has been produced, and whether we have the infrastructure to ensure it reaches people when they need it.

Canada produces an enormous amount of food, but we also waste a massive amount of it. An estimated 46.5 per cent of Canada's food supply is lost or wasted every year. Meanwhile, 9.8 million people in this country are food insecure.

That is a contradiction we should no longer accept.

Food rescue is not a replacement for policies and actions that make food affordable. Nor should charities be expected to solve food insecurity on their own. Our food system needs to be strengthened.

At Second Harvest, we see this every day. Food businesses have surplus food that is still safe and nutritious. Community organizations have people who need it. The challenge is often connecting the two through the right infrastructure, transportation, storage, and co-ordination.

That infrastructure is food-security infrastructure.

Investments in Canada's food system should include not only production and processing, but also the infrastructure required to recover, store, transport, and redistribute good food that would otherwise go to waste.

Because food security is not just about whether this country has enough food.

It is about whether people can afford it, whether it is available where they live, whether our food system can withstand disruption, and whether the food we already produce actually reaches people who need it.

Trade policy will change. Tariffs will be imposed, removed, or renegotiated. Supply chains will adapt. Today's economic shock may eventually pass with or without lasting impacts. 

But the vulnerability of millions of Canadians will not disappear simply because a tariff is lifted.

We should not wait for the next tariff announcement, economic downturn, or supply-chain disruption to discover that our food system cannot absorb another price shock.

The essential question is whether—during this shock or when the next shock comes—Canadians will have enough resilience in our food system to ensure that no one is left behind.

That is a question we can and should answer now.

Lori Nikkel is the CEO of Second Harvest.

The Hill Times