Canada doesn’t just have a food inflation problem, it has a market structure problem – and it’s getting worse.
Over the last two years, we’ve been fixated on prices: why groceries cost more, why inflation remains stubborn, and why relief hasn’t materialized for many households. But we are missing the bigger issue. Canada’s economy is becoming increasingly K-shaped, and that is quietly undermining both affordability and innovation in our food system.
The gap between Canada’s richest and poorest grew last year as financial markets gained, interest payouts declined and the job market softened, said Statistics Canada on Monday.
The agency says the income gap — measuring the difference in the share of disposable income between households in the top 40 per cent and those in the bottom 40 per cent — reached 46.7 percentage points in 2025.
For years, Canada’s housing crisis and its productivity slump have been treated as parallel emergencies. One was a matter of affordability and social equity, the other a question of economic competitiveness.
However a growing body of research, and a pair of Canadian experts who have spent years studying both, say that framing has always been wrong. They insist the country is paying a steep price for keeping the two conversations apart.
Researchers from Harvard’s Growth Lab contend Canada’s restrictive urban zoning is short-circuiting the normal mechanism by which productivity gains in major cities become national prosperity.
More than 84,300 houses across Ontario — around the number you’d find in a mid-sized city like Markham — were owned as investments by businesses or for-profit government entities such as public-sector pension funds in 2023, according to data from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program.
This data, released in recent months, offers a glimpse at where, and how acutely, businesses of all types have invested in Canadian single-family housing stock.
When news broke that the Donald Trump administration and Iran had agreed to a two-week ceasefire, markets reacted instantly. Oil prices plunged within minutes, wiping out days of gains and triggering a wave of optimism. For many consumers, the assumption seemed obvious: lower oil prices should mean lower food prices.
That assumption is fundamentally flawed.
CALGARY — Cabinet turned to marketing experts and focus groups to test slogans and logos as Canada’s housing shortage worsened, according to internal records that raise fresh questions about priorities in addressing affordability.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Privy Council Office commissioned nationwide focus groups to gauge which branding concepts would best convince Canadians the government had a plan to fix the crisis.
I bet “Blame it on Trump” was touted as a favourite to win.
Housing prices are dipping in Canada’s priciest markets, but real estate experts say it’s not necessarily the break for which potential first-time homebuyers have been waiting — and that break may never come.
TD Economics said in a report last week that it expects home prices to slide 0.3 per cent across Canada this year, after a weak performance in the market over the last two quarters, with Ontario and B.C. facing the biggest drops.
Sometimes, living in a car is the only way a lady can survive.
At the age of 76, Susan Patricia Staples is a veteran of vehicle residency, as it is called, the act of sleeping in a car with no address except the next Walmart parking lot. She did it for nine impoverished months a few years ago, and if car life sounds like part of her past, it isn’t. Sleeping in her vehicle is the only way she can afford to leave her tiny apartment and visit friends in faraway locales, staying connected to the world.
CALGARY — Few Canadians believe Ottawa is getting housing right, with many saying relief is years away despite repeated federal claims of progress, according to internal research obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
Privy Council Office focus groups found widespread skepticism that Housing Minister Gregor Robertson is making meaningful headway on affordability, with participants overwhelmingly concluding the government is either on the wrong track or failing to show results.
Ontario minimum wage workers are getting a cost of living boost that will bring their earnings to $17.95 an hour next October but that won’t pay bills in Toronto, says the Ontario Living Wage Network.
While an increase is appreciated, most workers earning basic wages in Toronto region need another $9.25 to reach the $27.20 living wage required for survival, said the network’s spokesperson Craig Pickthorne.
Easter has long been one of the last holidays where tradition still dictated what landed on the dinner table. Lamb for many. Ham for most. Turkey, occasionally. But in 2026, something has shifted — and not subtly. This year, the Easter menu is being decided less by culture and more by cost.
By now, it’s clear that no matter what kind of resolution U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to impose on his latest misadventure in Iran, this conflict and its global repercussions will be far from over.
More likely, it will resemble George W. Bush’s infamous “mission accomplished” moment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003: a premature declaration of victory that gave way to years of prolonged conflict, with consequences that are still unfolding today.
Whatever branding Trump chooses, it won’t stick.
But the economic consequences will.
For decades, economic slowdowns followed a predictable script in foodservice. As household budgets tightened, consumers traded down. Full-service restaurants suffered. Fast food thrived. Value, convenience and predictability made quick-service restaurants (QSRs) the natural refuge in uncertain times.
Taxing food disproportionately punishes those with the least flexibility. It’s not just inefficient—it’s fundamentally wrong
Manitoba’s decision to remove the provincial sales tax (PST) from all groceries is a sound policy move — though perhaps not for the reasons many assume. What makes this announcement even more remarkable is who is making it: an NDP government choosing to reduce taxes at the grocery store. In today’s policy environment, that is both unexpected and noteworthy.
The province is planning to temporarily remove Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) for buyers of new homes.
Premier Doug Ford announced the plan Wednesday at a news conference in Mississauga, saying the full 13 per cent tax will be removed for new homes valued up to $1 million from April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027.
For homes valued up to $1.5 million the temporary measure would see them qualify for the maximum $130,000, decreasing proportionally to homes valued at $1.85 million, which would qualify for a $24,000 rebate, said the release.
Sounds like it will be a windfall for the rich.
