00:00:00.000Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:05.740This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:09.240See, you think sometimes that you're a seasoned broadcast veteran
00:00:33.620and then you miss that critical piece of unmuting yourself
00:00:38.020at the beginning of the show so my best material was in that five seconds that you just missed but
00:00:42.820uh hello and welcome to you all after that little bit of a false start this is the Andrew Lawton
00:00:48.180show here on True North on this Tuesday December 6th and I want to just get right into it because
00:00:54.020the story I want to tackle today in this lead segment is one that a lot of the time I think
00:00:59.280Canadians might be well aware of before academics and journalists start to pay attention to it and
00:01:06.480that is grocery store pricing which as we know has been at just record levels in this past year
00:01:12.160anecdotally and we've got data to back this up and unfortunately I'm not really going to be the
00:01:18.440bearer of good news here because it sounds like things are going to be getting worse next year
00:01:23.920the report that came out just yesterday Canada's food price report finds that we're looking at
00:01:29.920about another five to seven percent on average increase next year which could add i mean in some
00:01:36.580cases over a thousand dollars to a family of four's grocery bill and if you want to talk about
00:01:41.440some of the numbers here uh they're very very stark uh the upper estimate that i'm seeing here
00:01:46.260is a sixteen thousand two hundred and eighty eight dollars in food costs for a family of four
00:01:52.360over the course of 2023. That's an increase of $1,065 over this year for a two adult household,
00:02:00.760about $7,711, which is an increase of about $500. So these are not insignificant increases,
00:02:08.440especially when you bundle them up with other cost of living increases that are taking place
00:02:13.000in other sectors as well that we all have to find a way to pay for. I want to discuss this
00:02:19.000in a bit more depth with one of the researchers involved in this report, Professor Stuart Smythe,
00:02:24.060who is from the University of Saskatchewan. Professor, good to talk to you. Thanks for
00:02:28.660coming on today. Good afternoon, Andrew. Pleasure to join you. So when we talk about inflation,
00:02:34.380a lot of the times I think people try to find a simple explanation for something that might have
00:02:39.520a few different inputs to it. When we're talking about food prices here and the increases that
00:02:46.120you're identifying in this report, are we seeing the product of a number of phenomena or are we
00:02:51.240seeing one or two major drivers? I'd say it's probably three or four, Andrew. So we've got
00:02:58.620the war in Ukraine that's creating a rise in commodity prices, which pushes up the cost of
00:03:04.660ingredients for all of the various food products. We've got the fact that OPEC's still capping
00:03:10.340production pushing uh oil and gas prices higher we're you know even though prices have come down
00:03:16.500from the peak in the summer we're still 40 higher than last year at this time and and you're right
00:03:22.580with inflation and the decline in the value of the canadian dollar that just pushes up the cost to
00:03:27.860to impart the fruits and vegetables over the coming winter months from the southern us and
00:03:32.820then the last one i throw away there is the labor shortage um the trucking industry estimates they've
00:03:37.460They've got 15 or 20,000 vacancies right now, and they expect that could rise to possibly over 30,000 by spring.
00:03:45.180So just the longer uncertainty in transportation, all of those really come together and are sort of the evil four that are driving food price increases.
00:03:56.940Three of the four things you identified there are, by and large, things that are problems outside of Canada that we obviously have to deal with because of the global supply chain here.
00:04:09.200But, I mean, the obvious thing that jumps out to me not being an expert in this field is that is this the product of not doing enough to shore up domestic production?
00:04:17.100or is the nature of food supply and production that we just as a country don't have the domestic
00:04:22.480capacity for that given how interconnected and how globalized food supply is?
00:04:28.760So that sort of spread throughout the grocery store, Andrew. We do a fantastic job on the meats
00:04:35.300and the dairy and the breads, those aspects. And in the summer, we can do a little bit of the fruits
00:04:41.140and vegetables but but come the winter months then we're starting to to import um you know the
00:04:47.220vast vast majority so it's somewhat commodity specifically you know we've got potatoes that
00:04:53.380will be distributed across canada for months because of just the massive amount of potatoes
00:04:58.900that are produced in pei um so but you know apples and pears and those kinds of things we we tend to
00:05:05.620to run out of those into you know not too long after harvest so we're bringing in apples from
00:05:10.760from various parts of the world right yeah that's fair and I know that certainly there are people
00:05:16.660that probably grocery stores have a level of seasonality to them you know everyone gets excited
00:05:20.980when you know this product's in season or that product's out of season but I think generally
00:05:24.520speaking consumers kind of like being able to buy whatever they want year-round we've been
00:05:30.120I don't know spoiled a little bit because of the global supply chains that you know if you want to
00:05:37.580pay enough for asparagus you can eat it virtually any month of the year regardless of whether we
00:05:42.860produce any in Canada in January or not right so so so yeah I think we've you know previously when
00:05:48.840when food prices were a little bit more stable um consumers were a little bit less discerning as to
00:05:56.740you know what they were going to buy for any particular meal and and and now you know you
00:06:02.120go and look at a package of lettuce that's eight nine maybe ten bucks you know consumers are sort
00:06:07.340of second guessing whether or not they they actually need to buy that product um for for
00:06:11.700this coming week i know when you start moving the the phenomena you're describing here into
00:06:17.380the political realm there there's a lot of finger pointing here the conservatives have
00:06:20.900raised issues about the carbon tax exacerbating, not necessarily causing this. Does that kind of
00:06:27.320trip your radars here as a meaningful increase to this? I think it's certainly getting factored in
00:06:35.600and will be more so in come April when the carbon tax jumps by 30% from 50 to $65. So that impacts
00:06:44.280every mile of food transportation and and we're a big country so transportation costs are
00:06:51.880a significant component of food prices yeah and and that's i mean fuel prices uh and grocery
00:06:58.760prices are i think the two main things that canadians are seeing uh as far as symptoms of
00:07:04.440this inflationary period we're in and and obviously that you know the fuel price you're paying for it
00:07:08.920when you fill up your own tank and then anything you buy that was shipped to where you bought it
00:07:12.040from you're you're paying a little bit downstream there so we we look at these numbers in 2023
00:07:17.640is there anything that's looking better or at least markedly not as bad as other things or is
00:07:24.500it kind of painful across the board across uh different sections of the grocery store
00:07:28.680the one bright spot i see is there's a there's a global indice that looks at supply chain
00:07:34.480disruptions and it peaked in sort of late january early february of this year and it's down 75
00:07:41.860percent now so so what that says to me is that things that were causing problems in the distribution
00:07:48.900of food products has has greatly eased now we may not be seeing much evidence of that just yet in
00:07:55.380in canadian grocery stores but i think over the the first three to six months of 2023 that will
00:08:00.900become more noticeable so that the supply of products is going to be more consistent and and
00:08:06.180I think that removing some of the uncertainty in distribution of products is going to have
00:08:13.860a ripple effect on the prices that we may see a bit of a plateauing of prices as we move towards
00:08:19.940spring. On that note, are grocery prices a bit of a lagging indicator in some ways? If some of those
00:08:27.860problems you identified earlier were to resolve or at least get better early on,
00:08:32.500how long does it take for those changes to trickle down to the grocery store price tags
00:08:38.580that sort of is dependent on specific products so the the grocery stores are going to put purchase
00:08:45.460contracts in place maybe up to three or four months in advance and and so as the variability
00:08:53.220on those prices affects now so the things that retail grocery chains are buying right now will
00:09:00.820actually show up in grocery stores february march april so so you're right those legs will
00:09:08.100have an impact and we may be paying a higher price now due to things that happened in
00:09:12.820july august and september so um that's part of that uncertainty and as as i as you know
00:09:19.860as i think that uncertainty gets reduced then that that helps contribute to stabilizing the
00:09:25.140the price is fingers crossed a little bit more i i shudder to ask this because i i know that
00:09:31.220this is a very painful uh trend that we're seeing for a lot of canadians but on the production side
00:09:37.620for uh farmers and industry that are exporting these things are they actually seeing any upside
00:09:43.060from this right now or is any upside in their price getting swallowed up by their increased
00:09:48.260operating costs yeah i mean certainly commodity prices have been higher this year but but fertilizer
00:09:56.020prices have probably been equally as high and in talking to farmers you know and my students over
00:10:02.580the past number of months they said that the crop that they put in the ground in in april may june
00:10:08.100of 2022 was the most expensive crop they ever planted so so that certainly indicates that
00:10:14.740yeah the rest of the ag input sector realized that commodity prices were up
00:10:19.860but supply chains also restricted the availability of fertilizers and chemicals that were equally
00:10:26.900important so so i don't know that the margins of profitability margins for farmers are going
00:10:32.020to be significantly different this year than maybe in past years how about on the grocery
00:10:37.780store side because i know i think it was two weeks ago or three weeks ago loblaws third quarter
00:10:43.140profits were up about 30%. And I know they've been criticized of, you know, perhaps padding
00:10:48.340prices and using inflation as a bit of cover, but I don't know what, you know, would normally be
00:10:52.940expected from them at this time of year. Loblaws is a bit tricky, right? Because they've purchased
00:10:59.720London drugs. And when they report all of that financial information, they're not separating
00:11:05.680the London drugstore component from the Sobeys grocery store. So we don't know
00:11:12.240the the difference between say a bundle of carrots and a bottle of facial cream so
00:11:17.320that's what makes their numbers a little tougher to to to really get a good grip on whereas a lot
00:11:25.020of the other you know the grocery stores are reporting just just the actual grocery the
00:11:31.620aisles kind of things not um the pharmaceutical side of things right okay no that makes a lot of
00:11:37.500sense. I guess just to put this and perhaps a little bit of a hopeful end on this discussion
00:11:42.940here. I mean, Canadians are having to make decisions when they go to the store and if they
00:11:47.520can't afford products, they're having to work around that. Is there a fix or a band-aid that
00:11:53.120governments could apply here? Or is this really, in your view as a researcher, a ride it out
00:11:58.840situation? Maybe the one area that the government needs to, I think, would be a timely reassessment
00:12:06.260is whether there's value in having supply management
00:12:12.540Supply management was put in the dairy poultry industry
00:12:15.340in the 1970s when markets and the size of farms
00:12:18.560were vastly different than they are today.
00:12:21.420I'm not saying we should or we shouldn't get rid of it,
00:12:24.180but I think it's a perfect time to do a reassessment
00:12:27.820of the need and the benefit to consumers
00:12:30.700of supply management, particularly in the dairy sector.
00:12:34.700I am completely 100% on board with you, and I am completely 100% sure I'm going to get the angry onslaught of emails from dairy farmers every time I or a guest make that point.
00:12:44.380But I think you're very much correct, and I think obviously, you know, if we were to see that happen, I'd want to make sure they were compensated for it.
00:12:51.040But, you know, Canadian consumers can benefit from the choice and the competition there.
00:12:55.640So I think you're right to raise that as far as what we could be doing here.
00:12:59.940Professor Stuart Smythe from the University of Saskatchewan.
00:13:02.960And thank you so much, Professor, for your insights.
00:17:03.400I don't understand how the green retrofits work, but you know what I mean.
00:17:07.520And that's the whole point is that government has inserted itself in the middle of this
00:17:11.300as a supposed solution, but is only adding to the problem.
00:17:17.300And I want to play a clip for you here of this being brought up in the course of the House of Commons.
00:17:23.420And, you know, interestingly enough, Garnet Jenis, who is a Conservative MP we've had on the show, decided that poetry was the answer to this.
00:17:46.500There's a gift-shopping tradition, but things are more expensive, thanks to the costly coalition.
00:17:52.020So instead, just rest, stay home, take a nap, try to forget about the Arrive Can app.
00:17:57.040If you hear the sound of a reindeer's hoof, then it's Santa, not Stephen, up on the roof.
00:18:03.060Santa reaches down inside of his sack.
00:18:05.560He knows what the people want is to have their freedoms back.
00:18:08.500But if you hear the sound of a convoy truck, then the message for Liberals is, end the mandates.
00:18:13.720Jesus was born with the hope to save every sinner, even the ones who attend the press gallery dinner.
00:18:19.720At Christmas, we celebrate the joy that we find and proclaim peace and love to all people kind.
00:18:25.720This might not be as good as Cousner's last riff, I just hope it won't get me shot by Giorno Dale Smith.
00:18:31.720To us, the night before Christmas, inflation is the worst.
00:18:34.720The Conservatives have a leader who will put the people first.
00:18:38.720you know i think his meter was a little off i i think you know he could have done a little bit
00:18:49.180better on the pacing i think some of the rhymes were good i'm gonna give i'm gonna give garnet
00:18:53.880an 8 out of 10 for that poem i i think i think 8 out of 10 some christmas generosity i'll say
00:18:59.860seven and a half but you know we like to round up on the andrew lawton show so i'll give garnet
00:19:04.780an 8 out of 10 on that and if he wants to like drop a beat next time he's on the show we'll give
00:19:09.080him some backing there uh you know i was actually hoping phil lawrence behind him was going to do up
00:19:13.520and start doing the go-go dancing behind him get leanne rude and marilyn gladu to do it do the can
00:19:18.500can have a whole little music party there he covered a lot he covered the convoy he covered
00:19:22.680inflation he covered the world economic forum and in the end canadians are still forced to deal with
00:19:29.200the government that is not taking this nearly as seriously as it could and nearly as seriously as
00:19:34.800it should. And perhaps it's because the government is so focused on trying to do things that have
00:19:40.660nothing to do with any public policy outcome that is at all relevant to Canadians, such as going
00:19:46.180after law-abiding firearms owners. Yeah, this has been a fascinating turn of events. We spoke
00:19:52.840a couple of weeks ago on the show with Rod Giltaka about the Liberals' efforts to pivot
00:19:58.700their firearms ban to a ban on virtually every semi-automatic rifle out there, including some
00:20:04.940non-semi-automatics, including even .22 caliber bullets, which again, they're still real bullets
00:20:10.420and they could do some damage, but they're like the tiny, tiny bullets that are used for shooting
00:20:15.420tin cans. And the government now seems to be admitting, at least to some extent, that they've
00:20:22.400stepped in it. So what happened was the firearms community really just ratcheted up its opposition
00:20:29.440to this and said, when you say that you're just going after the so-called killing machines and
00:20:33.760not the hunters, how do you justify these bona fide hunting firearms being on the banned list?
00:20:40.220And of course, the gun community talks about this. I talk about it. The straw that broke the camel's
00:20:45.520back, was a guy that I had never heard of talking about it. His name is Casey Prost. Now, sorry,
00:20:54.480what's that? Carey Price. Carey Price. Okay. Now, Carey Price, is that a woman, man? No,
00:21:03.440man. Okay. So apparently he is a goaltender for the Montreal Maple Leafs. And no, what? Sorry.
00:21:10.400Montreal Canadiens okay the I didn't know there were any patriotic Canadians in Quebec so the
00:21:18.260Montreal Canadiens and I'm teasing I know very little about sports but I do know that the
00:21:23.080Montreal Canadiens are one of the original six hockey teams so I don't want you to take me too
00:21:27.160too seriously on this but that is like the extent of my knowledge of sports and whenever I try to
00:21:32.200do a sports segment I have no idea what I'm talking about but supposedly Carey Price is a
00:21:37.580relevant figure in the world of hockey i don't believe that the montreal canadians have done all
00:21:44.480that much in terms of winning stanley cups i'm told uh so i don't know if he's good or not i
00:21:49.520don't know if they're good or not i just i'm i don't even have a team and people are going to
00:21:53.640hate me for this so uh let me just okay what were we talking about we were talking about guns let
00:21:58.920me get back to that so carrie price the uh supposed um defensive tackle for the montreal
00:22:04.500Canadians, comes out and says he's a law-abiding gun owner and takes aim at Justin Trudeau for
00:22:12.480going after people like him. And this was, I'd say, actually very relevant because he permeates
00:22:20.700beyond just the world of standard gun owners, sport shooters, hunters. He has an audience that
00:22:28.600is broader than that. And I think he put a human face on firearms ownership, which doesn't really
00:22:33.180exist a lot of the time in the debate and it was fascinating and you fast forward to yesterday
00:22:40.380and Justin Trudeau says no no no we're going to actually take a look at this and consult on this
00:22:46.720take a look at the clip we made a commitment to continue to move forward with strong smart gun
00:22:53.780control in this country to keep communities safe to keep Canadians safe and we're going to continue
00:22:59.660to do that we move forward with a national freeze on handguns and a few years ago we banned military
00:23:07.900style assault weapons uh sorry banned uh assault style weapons we're going to continue to do that
00:23:17.500now we've just put forward uh a list and we're consulting with canadians on that we're hearing
00:23:22.620a lot of feedback around concerns that uh hunters are saying about guns that they use more for
00:23:29.100hunting or hunting rifles or shotguns and that's what we're listening to feedback on now to make
00:23:35.740sure that we're not capturing weapons that are primarily hunting weapons but we all know that
00:23:43.580we need to make sure that guns that are designed to kill the largest number of people as quickly
00:23:48.940as possible have no place in canada and we're going to continue to move forward with that
00:23:54.540in a strong and smart way we'll continue to listen to canadians we're not going after
00:23:59.100We are targeting the most dangerous weapons, the weapons that were used in places like Ecole Polytechnique or recently in South Simcoe or in Portapic that have caused far too much tragedy over the past many, many years.
00:24:17.460So we're moving forward in a responsive way.
00:24:20.800Some conservative politicians at the federal level want to restore military-style assault weapons.