The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - October 27, 2026


More Canadians are relying on food banks than ever before.

The current government is out of touch. Carney’s Canada-EU Summit was all talk and no trade results.

Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

168.31

Word count

3,458

Sentence count

188


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm
00:00:13.500 your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Gawartha Lakes, with new
00:00:16.880 content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment,
00:00:21.780 subscribe and share this program. Tell your friends too. They can download it on platforms
00:00:26.080 like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. You name it, it is out there.
00:00:30.000 On today's show, we are talking about grocery prices in Canada, unfortunately on the rise as food bank usage hits record highs.
00:00:39.000 To explain all of this and talk about our position, we bring on the critic for the portfolio, Tamara Cronus, the Member of Parliament for Nanaimo Ladysmith.
00:00:47.860 Thanks for coming on the show.
00:00:49.040 Thanks so much for having me here today, Jamie.
00:00:51.100 I'm excited to get into this because I think no matter where you live in Canada, this is affecting somebody, a friend, a neighbour,
00:00:57.480 perhaps even the person or individual watching or listening to this podcast.
00:01:01.880 I think food inflation, the price of the grocery store, the amount of your bill,
00:01:06.840 when you look at that receipt and look in your cart, it doesn't seem to make much sense anymore.
00:01:13.060 Food affordability is definitely affecting us all,
00:01:16.080 and people across the country are bewildered and angry about it.
00:01:21.100 So there's a few factors into this, and we're going to get into this.
00:01:25.580 We have a few graphics here that just show the magnitude of what we're talking about.
00:01:29.960 2.3 million visits a month to the food bank.
00:01:33.740 This is records in normal world would lead to a government being turfed out real fast, right?
00:01:43.320 Like if you or the government in power and you were running on a platform or even a record of sending more people to the food bank than ever before,
00:01:52.500 Or this is something they don't seem to be addressing to the satisfaction of many?
00:01:58.660 Or really, they don't seem to really have a plan to look at this?
00:02:02.980 Well, it's actually even worse than 2.3 because it's 2.35 million visits to a food bank every month.
00:02:10.020 And we're talking about an increase of 117% in a very short period of time.
00:02:16.020 You know, I think that in the House, the liberals were sick and tired of us harping on the fact that it was 2.2 million food bank visits a month.
00:02:24.100 Well, now it's 2.35 million food banks a month.
00:02:26.980 And, you know, people ask who that incremental group of people is.
00:02:31.420 And more and more, we are looking at families where their number one source of income is actually employment income who are using the food banks.
00:02:41.620 And it is a third are kids. And it is it is really difficult to watch the suffering that's out there. Seniors, kids, working people, you know, immigrants who came to Canada believing that life would be better.
00:03:00.000 I talked to a young person this weekend who came to Canada from South America because of the economic challenges in their country.
00:03:09.840 And they left their family and they came to Canada for a better life.
00:03:13.340 And you know what this person said to me this weekend?
00:03:15.500 He said, Tamara, sometimes Canada feels like home.
00:03:20.640 So it's really hitting people.
00:03:22.900 It's really hitting people where it counts.
00:03:25.320 And it is a really heart-breaking thing to worry about whether or not you're going to be able to feed your kids.
00:03:32.400 And as chair of our Food Affordability Task Force, you've probably had a number of these conversations,
00:03:38.260 but as we look at these numbers, one stat that came out just glaring to me when these facts keep coming out month after month
00:03:46.800 was the amount, and you said it just a second ago, the amount of people going to the food bank for the first time.
00:03:52.320 That's an emotional and mental hurdle to cross, especially if you're a working individual, working family, going to the food bank for the first time when it didn't used to be like this.
00:04:04.500 I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to who have looked at me and said, I used to make good money.
00:04:10.420 And I used to think I made good money.
00:04:12.140 I can't believe I'm here.
00:04:13.400 I don't know how I got here or how or why this is happening to me.
00:04:18.720 It's really hitting people hard.
00:04:21.140 And of course, there's other people who are struggling and who are in some cases too proud to go.
00:04:25.760 And they're also really suffering.
00:04:28.000 All right, let's cut one to that point.
00:04:30.320 How did we get here?
00:04:31.400 We're going to kind of outline a bit, but we're going to also highlight kind of the severity.
00:04:36.840 I'm sure people know it who are watching and listening, but the severity of the issue.
00:04:40.360 If you haven't, play cut one.
00:04:42.180 Never cheap.
00:04:43.020 Every time you go in, the prices seem to be higher.
00:04:46.300 A new national survey shows 76% of Canadians say the cost of food and groceries has the biggest impact on household finances.
00:04:56.620 47% say gas is a significant financial pressure, followed by mortgage and rent at 33%.
00:05:04.040 Electricity, household maintenance and repairs, along with home heating, are also causing high levels of anxiety for Canadians.
00:05:13.100 And that can be felt anywhere?
00:05:14.220 It really can. But the further away you get from a commercial center, the more steps your food needs to take before it gets onto your plate, the higher the hurdles are.
00:05:28.520 So when I remember earlier in the year, we were asking questions in the house and there was a stream of questions around the idea that two bags of groceries now cost $80.
00:05:40.680 And I remember reacting viscerally to that because in my community, it's one bag of groceries that is costing $80.
00:05:49.980 And if you have cheese or meat in there, it's going to be more.
00:05:55.020 And that has to do with the question of how we got here. It's that the further away the food is from your plate, the more steps it takes.
00:06:05.920 So if the farmer has to buy the seeds and the fertilizer and the fuel, and they then also have to pay for the labor, and then they sell to a distributor, and that distributor sells to a warehouser, and then maybe some of it gets used in a food manufacturing process.
00:06:25.700 Well, and then that goes to another central distribution place, and then that goes on a truck, and then it goes to, there's a parking lot along the highway in my community where you sometimes see the trucks pull up and they sort of are redistributing the packages.
00:06:48.660 every single time anything, whether it's food or something else,
00:06:53.920 any time it changes hands, it's going to have a little bit of profit added to it.
00:06:57.940 And that compound profit works a lot like compound interest.
00:07:02.260 And it makes those prices rise many, many times before it gets to a place where you can buy it as a consumer.
00:07:12.340 Not to mention all the government red tape, the regulations, the taxes that each of those steps pay over and over again.
00:07:20.200 Let's go up cut two.
00:07:21.080 We have our leader, Pierre Polyev, with his ideas backing up exactly what you just said on why food prices are so high.
00:07:27.300 Play cut two.
00:07:28.040 Why is it that single mom seniors and small businesses are seeing grocery prices rise faster here in Canada under his leadership after he promised to stabilize them than people in any other G7 country?
00:07:39.440 I've offered my theory that it is his many taxes on farmers, fishers, food processing, and fertilizer.
00:07:46.440 If it's not all of his taxes on food production that's giving us the worst record, then what is?
00:07:52.800 One of the impacts, according to TD Bank, on food prices is the fall in the Canadian dollar
00:07:57.900 caused by the obstructionism of the members opposite before this government came in place.
00:08:02.700 What this government is giving Canadians is certainty.
00:08:05.040 Certainty with the groceries and essential benefit.
00:08:08.360 $1,800 for a family of two, providing the support Canadians need,
00:08:13.120 the boost now, the bridge to a brighter future with building Canada.
00:08:17.600 Okay, that made no sense whatsoever.
00:08:19.520 So the reason the Canadian dollar fell is because of the obstruction of the opposition.
00:08:28.640 I don't know what that means.
00:08:29.840 The Liberals have been in power for 11 years.
00:08:31.560 I have no clue what that Prime Minister is talking about.
00:08:34.760 I certainly don't have any more insight into what's going on in the prime minister's head
00:08:39.120 than you do. But I can tell you that one of the things that we know is going on for Pierre
00:08:45.140 is that we are talking about a guy who goes to the grocery store, who actually looks into
00:08:54.140 these supply chains. He takes them apart. I love it when he takes me to task over the,
00:08:59.340 how does this work and how does that work? And it's a really, he's really interested and really
00:09:04.480 engaged with what is going on for the average family. And I think that that's really influenced
00:09:09.820 the path that we're taking in our caucus towards solving this problem. I'm really excited to be
00:09:17.740 chairing this task force and look at the investment that we're making into it. I'm
00:09:24.100 asked to chair the national task force. I've now engaged provincial chairs from every province so
00:09:29.760 that we're going to have two people from British Columbia, two from Alberta, one from Saskatchewan,
00:09:33.700 one from Manitoba, two or three from Ontario, two from Quebec, one from the Maritimes and another
00:09:41.120 from Atlantic Canada and a senator. So we're talking about building out a big team to really
00:09:47.960 dive into what is going on with food prices. People who are going to be empowered to talk to
00:09:55.400 our colleagues and get the stories that are coming out from our communities. And by the way,
00:10:00.120 to anyone who's watching this, if you have a story or you have some insight into what's going
00:10:05.840 on with food affordability, whether it's in your community or across Canada, whether you're someone
00:10:11.500 who consumes food or makes it, we would really love to hear from you because we are doing the
00:10:18.620 work. We are compiling the data. We want to make evidence-based decisions about why food prices are
00:10:24.740 doing what they're doing. And we really want to be able to dig deep and find the policy solutions
00:10:30.940 that will help stabilize food prices, that will bring the rate of food inflation back under the
00:10:37.780 rate of general inflation, and that will really do the work that needs to be done around things
00:10:43.620 like food waste and other factors to bring down that grocery bill. And one thing we need more of
00:10:51.780 in Canada is food processing, and especially on the meat side, it doesn't matter which one you're
00:10:58.660 talking about, the rules and regulations have stopped federal plants from creeping up. Even
00:11:04.800 provincially regulated plants have stopped popping up because the rules and regulations and taxes
00:11:09.900 make it just impossible to get off the ground without a massive backing of money and perhaps
00:11:15.560 endless amount of time let's play does kill cut three talking more to this issue and that'll jump
00:11:23.740 us on to the next topic which is diesel fuel prices play cut three the magnitude of the impact
00:11:29.420 of the cost of living on those daily pressures of groceries gas is really quite startling the
00:11:35.820 inflation rate is at 3.9 percent it is the highest among g7 countries giffen says affordability
00:11:42.200 issues are forcing young people to make difficult lifestyle decisions. They want to have kids,
00:11:48.060 but they're not going to have kids because how do you afford kids if you haven't bought a house
00:11:52.220 already? According to Chapman, if you add it all up, many Canadians feel an overwhelming level of
00:11:58.500 financial despair. Absolutely. So we have rules, regulations, red tape preventing certain industries
00:12:04.280 from expanding or even starting up again. You have diesel fuel prices, which affect the trucking and
00:12:10.160 a lot of other things in this chain that you mentioned earlier, that when the level of taxation
00:12:15.840 is what it is, it all gets compounded to the final price at the grocery store. That's not all of it,
00:12:22.720 the issues of why the groceries are so high, but it's something the government could probably get
00:12:27.320 into, provide some relief for Canadians. Well, this is where I'm glad you brought that up in
00:12:32.540 terms of what government can do, because this is where my two portfolios start to intersect, because
00:12:37.500 On the supply chain issue side, I just saw that this clip included the food professor.
00:12:44.560 I had a really interesting and wonderful meeting with him just shortly after I started in this role.
00:12:51.520 And what's really interesting is that there's a need for greater entrepreneurship.
00:12:56.080 There's a need for creativity.
00:12:57.640 There's a need to give Canadians an outlet to be able to work on food sovereignty and food security and food affordability in their communities.
00:13:04.940 And where that comes in, it's really interesting. There is a shortage of commercial kitchen space. There's a shortage of innovation space. There's a shortage of investment in that kind of entrepreneurship that will allow us to get better products, to be able to encourage that kind of regional innovation, and also to be able to build food security and food sovereignty a little closer to home.
00:13:31.400 And as we're talking about the agricultural industry as a whole,
00:13:35.600 we have farmers, for the most part, that are getting older, like we all are.
00:13:41.820 We have a younger generation.
00:13:43.640 Yes, some are getting into the trade, absolutely,
00:13:46.500 but not to the level we have seen in historic Canada, right?
00:13:51.080 There's always been that family passing down of the farm.
00:13:54.460 Now it's a little trickier.
00:13:57.640 But still, when it's very difficult to make a living as a farmer,
00:14:03.380 it's hard to get the younger generation to jump into that, right?
00:14:07.100 We're 24-7, 365 for the ability to provide for you and your family at a comfortable pace, right?
00:14:17.360 Many are working off-farm.
00:14:19.080 We have people taking on second, third jobs just to keep that farm going.
00:14:24.100 going. And that's a bit of a problem as well. Absolutely. When I was in Quebec this summer
00:14:30.140 in La Poqueteire, working on my French, I met a family, a young man and his mother. And the young
00:14:38.280 man was a sixth generation farmer. It's the sixth generation and their family. And he's got two
00:14:44.460 siblings. And it's how do they figure out how to divide the farm up among them. And it's not a large
00:14:48.800 farm. It's three acres. And the question becomes, how can that be structured in a way that's going
00:14:56.600 to allow the two kids that want to be involved in the business to buy out the third, to pay the
00:15:02.940 parents for their investment, and to be able to run a farm that's going to be able to make a living
00:15:07.940 where government really does get in the way? Because that farm as a sixth generation farm
00:15:13.980 may not actually have an adjusted cost base.
00:15:16.700 When you think about when income tax being a relatively recent creation,
00:15:25.440 it feels like it's gone on forever for us.
00:15:27.580 But when you're looking at six generations, even in this generation,
00:15:32.140 it's the change in the adjusted cost base,
00:15:34.240 the deemed disposition that happens between generations
00:15:36.720 is really throwing a wrench in succession planning.
00:15:40.540 And then you get on the other side,
00:15:42.180 You get into people like my own daughter, who is intending to be a farmer, and you look at what it costs to acquire land and what it costs to be able to get into the profession.
00:15:55.540 Then from there, you start asking how you're going to operate.
00:16:01.640 After you climb this giant Capitol Mountain, which I don't know how young people do it or will do it,
00:16:09.820 You then talk about the operating side, and you have every single level of government involved.
00:16:16.720 You have municipal issues and regional district issues.
00:16:20.900 You have provincial regulations.
00:16:23.380 You have federal regulations.
00:16:25.760 You have land regulations, safety regulations, food regulations.
00:16:31.800 It becomes a really complicated matrix.
00:16:34.140 And just ask yourself, how on earth is any person with a PhD in big government and government red tape going to figure this out, let alone a young person or a university grad who's looking to figure out or a college grad or someone who just likes getting their fingers in the dirt or raising animals going to figure out how to navigate all of this?
00:16:57.300 As someone new to the portfolio, but you had a lifetime of experience based on your resume and just dealing with people in your community, what potential solutions do you have right now that we can possibly push the government to do to provide some relief?
00:17:14.300 Not that they're going to do it, but at least we're trying to give them an option.
00:17:18.300 Well, I think there's three things.
00:17:19.540 The first one is that we really need to take a whole-of-government approach to this.
00:17:23.740 People in our communities are sick and tired of being shuttled from office to office
00:17:27.560 and having to run files at each level to deal with things like elk that are destroying their crops
00:17:34.800 or one example in my community is derelict boats, which everybody and nobody seems to be responsible for.
00:17:42.960 People in our communities are sick and tired of this everybody and nobody's responsible approach to government.
00:17:48.220 So we've got to take a whole of government approach.
00:17:49.960 We've got to do a better job, all of us, of working together, and certainly I know we're willing to do that, but we need to see real cooperation and not calls of obstructionism while claiming cooperation when they're really trying to make sure that there's no option except for obstructionism.
00:18:10.340 It's the games that have got to stop.
00:18:13.320 And I know that everyone on our task force is absolutely committed to making sure that we find really good policy solutions.
00:18:23.600 So that's where the second approach comes in, which is making sure that we take a whole of Canada approach to this.
00:18:30.660 So that the people on our task force, we've got geographic representation from every part of the country.
00:18:35.860 And that's to make sure that everybody's voices are represented at the table and so that we can think of some really creative solutions.
00:18:43.140 And then the third thing is to really be doing the things that we, in fact, are doing in Parliament.
00:18:48.500 It's about making the government consider the costs of diesel.
00:18:51.960 You know, our emotions might be voted down because there's a majority government.
00:18:56.180 But when we spend the entire day making really good points about the hardship being faced by Canadians and the way in which the solutions that we're proposing can make a difference, we're often finding that the government does pick up at least part of those ideas.
00:19:12.520 And that's where kind of our steal your steal our ideas approach has come from.
00:19:16.160 The idea that we need Canadians need relief and we will provide the information that the government needs to be able to provide it.
00:19:24.660 And if they take us up on it, then then then it's it's too important to not to do anything other than say half a loaf is better than none at this point, especially given that half a loaf these days is all we can afford at twice the cost.
00:19:39.180 Absolutely. Unfortunately, we are out of time, but it's been a pleasure.
00:19:42.400 Your first time on the show, you may or may not know the guests get the last word.
00:19:46.640 So please close us out.
00:19:47.860 Well, I just want to thank you for focusing on this.
00:19:50.820 This is something that matters in every single community across Canada.
00:19:54.660 And I am so excited for all of the material that our members are going to be providing
00:20:00.760 and that our caucus is going to be able to provide on this
00:20:03.020 so that we can really work towards good solutions for people.
00:20:05.660 All right, Tamara Kronos, thank you very much.
00:20:07.600 Member of Parliament for Nanaimo.
00:20:09.200 Lady Smith, also the Shadow Minister for Supply Chain Issues
00:20:12.600 and Chair of the Food Affordability Caucus.
00:20:15.320 I think I got that all out.
00:20:16.640 Thank you so much for your time.
00:20:17.660 Thank you for yours.
00:20:18.920 Don't forget, we will have new content for you every single Tuesday,
00:20:21.820 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.
00:20:23.200 Tell your friends. Download it on platforms on CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.
00:20:27.420 You name it, it is out there.
00:20:28.940 Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:20:32.120 That's the blueprint.