Rising grocery prices are forcing many Canadians to cut back on meat and fresh food, while one in five say they have skipped meals over the past six months, according to new research commissioned by the federal Department of Agriculture.
Blacklock’s Reporter says the survey found food affordability has become the dominant concern for Canadian shoppers, with most respondents saying inflation has fundamentally changed how they buy groceries.
(Incognito)
Even more households are falling behind on their supersized mortgage payments. Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) data shows the mortgage arrears rate climbed in May. Mortgages at least 90 days past due have more than doubled since 2022, pushing the rate just shy of a decade high. New mortgage originations are also failing to offset outflows, already wiping out most of 2020’s low-rate growth.
It’s enough to make your head spin.
At any given moment recently, a reader could glance at their favourite newspaper and see conflicting headlines about condo prices plummeting, houses loitering for weeks on the market, and potential buyers going to absurd lengths to afford a place to live.
Colour me shocked.
HALIFAX – As the affordability crisis and overall inflation continues to impact Canadians across the country, a new national survey from Narrative Research showed 76 per cent said the cost of food and groceries had the biggest impact on their household finances.
Forty-seven per cent said gas is also a significant financial pressure, followed by mortgage and rent at 33 per cent.
Electricity, household maintenance and repairs, and home heating have also caused high levels of financial anxiety for Canadians.
According to Blacklock’s Report, the federal department of agriculture paid for a survey of 3,000 Canadian shoppers and found the typical Canadian family can no longer afford to follow Canada’s Food Guide diet — half of the plate fresh fruits and vegetable, one-quarter whole grains and another quarter protein. (AgCanada suggests mostly plant-based proteins, but that’s a political and ecological fantasy.)
A federal report gives a sense of the homeless count in Canada with 2025’s numbers doubling since the last survey in 2022, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
According to new data from Housing Minister Gregor Robertson’s department, 12,857 people nationwide slept in “unsheltered locations such as streets, alleys, parks, transit stations, abandoned buildings, vehicles, ravines and other outdoor locations.”
For generations, Canada offered something remarkable. It wasn’t guaranteed wealth, instant success, or a perfect life. Instead, it offered something more enduring: the belief that ordinary people, through hard work and personal responsibility, could build a better life than the one they inherited.
That belief became the Canadian dream.
Toronto’s middle class is packing up and moving out at such a rapid pace that the city’s population is dropping. Montreal and Vancouver are also in the midst of a similar outmigration.
It’s not only bad news for those cities; it also harms the country as a whole by slowing economic growth, straining our health care system, and increasing political polarization.
This migration out of cities is not just a Toronto story. While the City of Toronto saw 40,000 more people move out to other parts of the country last year than moved in from elsewhere in Canada, Peel Region lost even more, at 45,000.
But Toronto has so much to offer!
501 Streetcar, TTC @TTCnotices Toronto @cityoftoronto. Canada @Canada seems to have fallen. #itbetterhere pic.twitter.com/lK3jfVb1EL
— Jim Fannon Dominican Real Estate 🇨🇦 🇩🇴 (@jimfannon) July 20, 2026
OTTAWA — The Liberal government has yet to say whether it plans to extend Canada’s ban on foreign homebuyers, even as internal briefing notes warned time is running short to renew the policy through the existing regulatory process before the ban expires.
If the government does nothing, Canada’s ban, which first came into force in 2023, will sunset automatically on Jan. 1, 2027. The ban currently prevents anyone who is not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident from purchasing a home in any urban area in the country.
Canada’s building boom is slowing, but still very much alive–even without population growth. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) data shows housing starts slipped in June. BMO Capital Markets wrote to investors, explaining volumes of new housing aren’t a concern. However, they note Canada is building a “nation of rentals,” as most new units will be for purpose-built rentals (not homeowners) for the first time ever.
OTTAWA — With Canada’s affordability crisis dashing dreams of home ownership for many, Canadians are now finding that owning a new car is also becoming out of reach.
Released on Tuesday, AutoTrader’s Q2 2026 automotive price index suggests that even though new car prices have eased slightly, one in seven Canadians are abandoning plans to purchase a new car off the lot, opting instead for more affordable used options.
Savings have deteriorated for a majority of Canadians, particularly the bottom 80 per cent of Canadian households, as spending significantly outpace income growth, according to research by Boston Consulting Group.
Consumer spending is up, but that growth isn’t coming from income for those outside the top 20 per cent earners. The report said that for the lowest 20 per cent of earners, spending jumped 27 per cent over the past five years, while disposable income just went up three per cent.
OTTAWA – In 2016, through a citizens’ lawsuit over a City of Vancouver land-swap deal with a private developer, records surfaced pointing to something stranger than fiction.
In Mayor Gregor Robertson’s City Hall, an independent review of the file — commissioned to answer the community’s victory in court — indicated that a Chinese state investment giant had an interest in the file. Reports on the controversial condo development could be provided to China Investment Corp, the sovereign fund managing Beijing’s foreign assets, under a formal clause written into the contract.
Canadians are increasingly financing daily expenses through instalment loans as food prices continue to strain household budgets, according to a new report.
Data from Toronto-based fintech Koho Financial Inc. released Tuesday showed that use of its buy now, pay later financing option surged 109 per cent over the past year, growing from 0.8 per cent of users in May, 2025, to 1.71 per cent in May of this year. For perspective, Koho has more than 2.5 million customers across Canada.
OTTAWA — In a contentious ethics committee, Conservative MP Aaron Gunn moved Tuesday to summon Vancouver condo marketer Bob Rennie, federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, and major developers connected to Rennie’s fundraiser for Mark Carney as witnesses in an urgent parliamentary investigation of the Prime Minister’s multibillion-dollar British Columbia condo bailout — before the Liberal majority ended debate on the motion in a five-to-four vote, shelving the probe without allowing it to be decided.
They’re not even trying to hide it.
Well I’ll be… https://t.co/rXf6mkENeU pic.twitter.com/rAfO6iJsYF
— MBrant75 (@MBrant75) July 7, 2026
