Inflationary crisis happening in Canada.
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Summary
2.2 million Canadians line up at food banks every single month in Canada. And the saddest part is that one third of those are kids. To talk about this and much more, we bring on Leila Goodrich, a Member of Parliament for Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmell, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps of the Lakes, with new content
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for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe,
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and share this program. Tell your friends they can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes,
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Google Play, and Spotify. You name it, it is out there. Happy 2026, but sadly, you will be paying
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a lot more for groceries this year. To talk about this and so much more, we bring on Leila Goodrich,
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a Member of Parliament for Fort McMurray Cold Lake. Thanks for coming on the show again.
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Thanks for having me, Jamie. Unfortunately, a not-so-bright topic that we're going to talk
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about. No, it's really sad. We are dealing with food insecurity like we've never seen in my lifetime
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in generations here in Canada. And usually, when one generation moves into the next generation,
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that moves to the next generation, we've usually been a little bit better off, if not a lot better
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off, than the previous generations. Now, that's all changed. No, like, families can't afford to put
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food on their table. Like, the stats are starting to show that one in four households is food insecure.
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We have people that are struggling, that used to, that literally used to donate to the food bank.
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They were in a position where they could donate. Now, there are clients using the food bank. 2.2 million
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Canadians line up at food banks every single month in Canada, across this country. And the saddest part
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is that one-third of those, over 700,000 kids, are the ones using those food banks. So, this is an
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absolute travesty and something that the government seems to be completely negligent on.
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Mm-hmm. Yeah. And kind of dismissive to the point. They just fluff it off and tell us things have
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never been so good. Let's queue up cut one. So, estimated $800 a family of four is going to be
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spending this year more than last year. But that's all compounded, right? This is the thing you need
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to realize. It's compounded. So, 2022, 2022, it's all gone up. Well, what we've been seeing is year
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over year, out-of-control food inflation. And so, $800 more this year, it was more last year, it was
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more the year before. So, a family today is struggling compared to what a family five years ago was dealing
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with. And that's as a direct result of out-of-control government spending, which is driving up inflation
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and making everything more expensive. And all these new taxes and regulations. Play cut one.
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Canada's Food Price Report 2025 estimates the average family of four will spend more than $800
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more on food this year in comparison to what they spent in 2024. And the receipts don't end there.
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Mark Carcassel is on the story for us. And I know you've been digging into some of the big findings
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here. What can you tell us about what we're going to be paying at the grocery checkout?
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Yeah. We've already been worried for years, Linda, about food insecurity across this country,
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across the world, really. And this report only shows that there is more reason to worry,
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increasing reason to worry. Of course, it's all subjective to how much you make, what your
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various family debts are. But the fact remains that food prices are going up and up and up.
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And the solution to many of these problems that we're facing now is, according to the Liberals,
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another government program. Another government program funded, I'm not sure how, debts and
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deficit. But this is their solution. Not attacking the root cause of how we got here.
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Well, and I think this is pretty standard liberal piece of like, let's create a program so people
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forget about it and tell them that they've never had it so good and how much money they're going to
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be saving. Not talking about the fact that families want to actually feed their own children
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and pick what food they are providing for their families for a variety of different pieces. And
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so their marquee program, their thing that they're most proud of is the school food program, which,
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frankly, I don't know anybody that wants to see a kid go to school hungry. Like, I don't think you do.
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Like, nobody wants to see a kid. We have seen study after study showing that kids going to school
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hungry don't do as well. So in theory, this is a great idea. But again, leave it to the Liberals
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to take something that's great and make it bad. Because according to StatsCan, we have more than
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600 million kids in, or 600, sorry, we have more than approximately 6.6 million kids here in Canada.
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Well, they're only aiming to feed 400,000. So if you take the average school year represents
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approximately 180 days of education, and the amount of money they're providing, that's
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assuming $0 for administration, $3 per child per day.
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We all know it goes around the cotton canning machine here in Ottawa.
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Do you know what you could buy for $3 in my riding? In your riding, you might get groceries
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a little bit cheaper. But up north in Fort McMurray, I could buy an apple, a banana, and an egg.
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That's not a balanced meal. That's not enough for a kid to eat for the entire day at school.
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Like, this is completely disconnected from the reality. If we could bring down the price
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of food, families could be able to send their kids to school with food. We would be able to
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help bring people back up. But this is so indicative of what the liberals do. They find a
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problem, and they create a government program so that they can take credit for solving it.
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The answer here is food is more expensive. Our food inflation is twice as high as what it is in the
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U.S. We are out of control on food inflation, and that's, we have an industrial carbon tax that they
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don't have. We tax farmers on fertilizer. The U.S. doesn't do that. We tax truckers to bring us
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food. The U.S. doesn't do that. So our number one competitor, our biggest ally when it comes to being
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able to compare apples to apples, they are doing things that aren't driving up the cost of food
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as much as we are. So perhaps this is government that is creating this problem.
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And their dollar is more powerful, and they have better growing periods, and therefore they have
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more access to domestic food. But the reality is, if you tax a farmer that makes the food,
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and you tax a trucker that brings you the food, you're taxing the food, whether you want to admit
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Oh, absolutely. And I think that's a stark difference between conservatives and liberals.
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They create problems, and they create a new program to fix the problems that they created,
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whereas we're more about getting to the root cause, right? So they're just building onto the pile.
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We're trying to take the pile down to where it started, how it started, and address that. And
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fundamentally, it starts with a strong economy, but also a government that lives within its means.
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Absolutely. And I came from the health and safety world. So back when I was in industrial health and
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safety up in the oil sands, you didn't just deal with the band-aid solutions. You always tried to
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get to the root cause of what the problem was. Because if you could solve the root cause,
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you might be able to completely eliminate the risk and eliminate the hazard. The liberals are just like,
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basically throwing caulking on things, hoping that it doesn't leak and the walls don't crumble around
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us. And that's not sustainable. And there's only so much money to choose from, right? In this fiscal
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year, we're $78 billion in the hole. So they tout this as generational investment. Well, yeah,
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the next generation and za will be paying for that. And they'll have to deal with reduced services or
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higher taxes. Probably a combination of both. And that's not really fair to them either.
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No. And like, this again, this goes back to, this is what their solutions are. They want to be
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the guys in the red cape that come in to save Canada from itself. And the reality is, is Canadians are
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ridiculously brilliant. We punch above our weight in so many different spaces. We need government to get
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out of our way. Yeah, we don't need more dependents. No dependents. We don't need to be dependent on
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government. Not for every single thing, every single step. But this is what these liberals have done
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after the last decade. They've made it so that Canadians think that the only way is if government
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comes in with a new program. Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, when you're starving, you'll always
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reach for the open hand. But unfortunately, the government always has something hidden in the hand
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behind its back, right? Exactly. It's usually the club to hit you with in the form of more
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dependents, increased taxes, less quality of life for you, and choice making. And it's a cycle that
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keeps repeating itself. Yeah, exactly. So another issue that you brought up, and you were on the show
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many years ago talking about the exact same thing. Very similar. Yeah, kind of crazy we're talking about
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it again. Baby formula. Yeah, it turns out, three years, they've done nothing. Yes. Shocking. Let's queue up,
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cut two, where you bring this to the floor of the House of Commons. The answer is, is pretty
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remarkable. Play cut two. Every dollar the Prime Minister spends comes out of the pockets of
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Canadians, driving up the cost of everything. Food inflation on baby formula is up 84% in eight years.
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Formula is one of the top stolen food products in Canada, and it is now kept under lock and key in
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many places in Canada. I heard from Sierra, a Manitoba mom, who knew she was buying stolen baby formula,
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but she did it anyways because she had no other choice. Does the Prime Minister care that parents
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can't afford to buy baby formula? On this side of the House, we have taken, and we are taking action
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to fight food insecurity. This is why, among other measures, we're making the national school food
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program permanent to ensure more children have access to healthy meals at school. They're forgetting the
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part about the baby formula. Well, they don't listen. This is the problem. They don't listen. The baby
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formula. Let's breathe before school. Yeah. And so, like I said in the question, we've discovered,
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according to StatsCan, 84% increase in eight years on baby formula. The highest food product
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inflation in Canada is on baby formula. Parents are struggling to be able to buy this. And for parents
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that are feeding their children with baby formula, it is completely not replaceable with anything else. So
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there are people that make choices. There are people that are unable to breastfeed. There's a
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variety of different reasons. But for those families, this is their option. You cannot replace
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it with something else. We are seeing families that are introducing cal milk earlier than doctors
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recommend. We are seeing families introducing solids earlier than doctors recommend because they know that
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starving their baby is not a good answer. And they can't afford baby formula. And this is the reality
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after 10 years of liberals. And three years ago, we were talking about this. There was a huge crisis
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because one of the largest plants of baby formula had to curb its supply because of issues that made
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everything jump up. But we haven't learned anything. The government did effectively nothing in those three
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years. And so we're now in a space where our food inflation on baby formula is at 84% in the last eight
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years. In the US, it's at 43 and change in that same time frame. So we're twice as high on baby formula
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than the US in the same time frame, which just means that Canadian families are having a harder time
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meeting. And they don't care. Like they think it's funny to talk about school food program. Well,
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babies don't go to school. That's right. Yeah. And I find it scary too. You mentioned in your question
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that I've seen it around my rural area of baby formula being locked away or limited quantities
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put out in shelves because it's becoming an item that's increasingly being stolen. And when you're a
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parent and you have a child at home and it's that's hungry and you're going to do what you can. Like
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obviously... Well, it's like the mom that reached out to me who told me that she
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was knowingly buying stolen baby formula, but it costs so much less than buying baby formula at the
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store. And she felt bad about it. But she knew she needed to feed her child. Yeah. Like...
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This is the country that the Liberals have created. And this is 2025 in Canada, where we are literally
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forcing people into desperation. Like this has become Canada's new normal. But what could we expect
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from a Prime Minister who just doesn't care? He doesn't care. That's right. Have you talked to
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our biggest trading partner? He doesn't care. Doesn't care. Doesn't care. Doesn't care about you.
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Doesn't care. He's certainly enriching himself in some of these deals. I must say,
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the Brookfield company is doing quite well. But the average person still struggling. Well,
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maybe he'll care if Brookfield gets into the baby formula business. Maybe. Yeah. Then we might see some
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changes. And I hate to be flippantly joking about this. But at this point, this has been an issue.
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We've brought this up. We looked at this a number of times over the last three years. And they don't
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care. They didn't care before Mark Kearney. And they care less now. And that's sad.
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But I want to commend you. Because you are the one that stuck with this. You're the one that I know
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mothers and fathers in our communities around the country were noticing this. But it was really you
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that put it onto the national stage. It kind of brought everyone together that may have been in
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Newfoundland and someone in BC that went, yeah, formula is expensive here and there. And it kind of
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made them realize that there's a problem. Yeah. And congratulations to you on bringing this
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national attention on a topic you really didn't want to because who wants to talk about that?
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Well, and I didn't bring it up because it mattered to me. I brought it up because it
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mattered to so many Canadians. So many Canadians were bringing this to me saying like, I feel like
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I'm going crazy. Am I alone? And I was honored to get to bring those stories and those voices forward.
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Like I've had the Liberal Minister of Families accuse me of fake outrage when I'm getting mad that
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parents can't afford to feed their children baby formula. There's no fake outrage there. If you've
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talked to families that can't put food on the table and are choosing between feeding themselves or
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giving their baby baby formula, this isn't some kind of luxury item here. This isn't going down and
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buying a fancy purse or a brand new car. This is like a staple. Yep. And this is after 10 years of
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the government and they don't care. They don't seem to care. Nothing seems to be getting better on that
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front. But we have some solutions. We talked about a stronger economy. There's things we can get going
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in terms of projects. If people have jobs, then they can afford to buy the products. And we can then
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look at bringing in competition so that we can lower some of the prices. Like if you look at what the
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price of baby formula is in the UK or almost any of the EU countries, we're not competitive with them.
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We're much higher. We're higher than the US. So we can do things to bring down the price. But this would
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require government to actually care. Well, maybe that is a new program for it. We're pretty much out of time.
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As you know, the guests get the last word. Leila, the floor is yours. I want to just thank you
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for bringing me on so that more voices can hear on this important topic. And
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for those that are able, what I'm going to ask is, if you can, we have food banks and families that
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are relying on food banks, sometimes for the first time ever. We have food banks that have bare shelves
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of baby formula. So if you could donate, consider donating some baby formula to your local food bank
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and be part of the solution. This isn't solving the root cause of the problem, but this could make
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a huge difference for your local food banks and for the families that rely on them. So thanks.
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Couldn't have said that better myself. Leila, thank you so much for being on the show.
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Really appreciate your vision and your advocacy for this. And food insecurity is a growing and
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unfortunate situation here in Canada. So appreciate you fighting for those that are struggling.
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Leila Goodridge, Member of Parliament for Fort McMurray, Cold Lake. Thank you for your time.
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Thank you for yours. Don't forget, new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern time.
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Again, don't forget to like, comment, subscribe and share this program. Until next week,
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remember low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.