True Patriot Love - [Sneak Peek] Food Prices Are Rising… But Why Is Canada Paying More？

00:00:00.000 This to me feels like a scam in a lot of ways.

00:00:03.040 I get it.

00:00:03.600 It has to come here.

00:00:04.520 But the cost by the time it gets here, it's obviously marked up in Ontario,

00:00:09.620 not just the processing and shipping,

00:00:11.420 but there's a mark up there that Albertans probably didn't bargain for.

00:00:19.720 This is tplmedia.ca, tplmedia.ca local,

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00:00:33.640 the conversation today the conversation is while it's on the tip of everyone's tongue a couple of

00:00:39.460 weeks ago the prime minister came out with a national strategy for food and to kind of dig

00:00:44.880 deeper on that and see where we stand our very own food professor thank you very much paul micucci

00:00:51.440 for joining us we've had the food professor uh on before yeah yeah i won't uh proclaim to be the

00:00:57.140 food professor but I do you know what I think I mentioned on previous shows Mike uh I grew up and

00:01:03.420 I worked actually at a place called Canada Packers which is a food processing plant in Toronto and

00:01:10.980 it was very interesting experience when my uh when I was young paint the picture for me because that

00:01:16.020 seems to me like a tough job so 5,000 people basically would go to work in this plant and

00:01:22.800 uh it was right by the stockyards which is on saint claire avenue down in toronto

00:01:27.680 rail cars would come in the cattle would come off it would go to the kill and then basically they

00:01:32.960 would you know go to slaughter and then from slaughter it would actually go into the line they

00:01:38.400 would you know cut up uh you know cattle into every piece you can imagine and use every piece

00:01:44.560 um and then the Heinz of beef would uh be put into the freezers uh and then loaded onto trucks and

00:01:52.480 then there was bacon there was uh cold meats there was cheese there was all kinds of different

00:01:58.540 divisions that were and then uh guns road which is on the back is where the hooves and all the

00:02:05.240 other things were melted down so the smell yeah it's it was a tough neighborhood to be in man

00:02:10.920 well it's gone now it is yeah it's gone now and quite frankly there's a whole story to that

00:02:15.300 because it actually became a housing development that was built on top of it which i don't i don't

00:02:19.940 even know how but it was and quite frankly i know i'm not living there anytime soon no that

00:02:25.380 neighborhood still has a certain stench to it i'll be honest with you at times yeah well guns

00:02:29.560 road still exists so there still are some food processing or there's still some uh things

00:02:34.880 happening on the back with respect to leather and and okay animals so there is a slight smell

00:02:40.440 not even compared to what it was before but you know i used to get on my car and it was just

00:02:45.000 wretched you know the first half hour just about to be sick yeah uh going in and we used to go in

00:02:51.000 so interesting and i'll tie it up but it was an interesting story we used to go through and we

00:02:56.200 used to get our whites um and it was uh it was basically a jacket a white jacket white pants

00:03:03.000 and uh because i had graduated from the kill area the stockyards where they used to bring the cattle

00:03:08.920 over into and the kill line into night loading i used to get this white hat and it was because

00:03:15.560 you're working in a freezer all night right so it was warm clothes um and i used to start off

00:03:20.600 and i used to get my meat hooks so they give me my meat i everyone got two meat hooks who worked

00:03:26.040 in loading and all night long uh the guy would be up on a perch and you would walk over and it'd be

00:03:33.400 the number on it for the truck you were loading and you would put your meat hooks in and he would

00:03:38.040 knock uh the the hind of beef off onto your shoulder and you would carry it across the

00:03:44.120 loading dock and drop it into the trucks all night so you do eight to ten hours a night that's pretty

00:03:49.800 manual labor that was really and that's carrying beef on your shoulders a heavy job and there were

00:03:56.200 you know it's interesting and that's how strong so they used to call them the bullhunk gang

00:04:00.200 uh which were the guys who did it full time and they were uh these uh little you know uh eastern

00:04:06.520 european italian uh these little guys but they were all muscled like a hundred percent and that's

00:04:12.120 what they did all night and they would joke around throughout the night and they would

00:04:16.200 they would actually carry like a hundred pound 150 pound hind of beef with no hands on their

00:04:21.320 shoulders and they would do all this crazy stuff and so my dad which is interesting because my dad

00:04:27.800 you know uh was a truck driver and he had trucks and worked there uh and uh basically he would come

00:04:35.160 in and he would show off also and he would grab like 250 200 pound hinds of beef and he would

00:04:43.960 throw them on each shoulder and he would carry them across the dock and put them on a and that's

00:04:48.600 how strong these guys were because this is dead different era man this is dead weight yeah right

00:04:54.360 so i ate you know you know you think i wouldn't eat red meat but i did eat a lot of red meat

00:04:59.320 because i was around it the whole time and the interesting thing when we got ready for this show

00:05:03.800 I said to Christophe when we were doing the prep, I said, out of curiosity, what are people in Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia paying for top surly on Canada Day?

00:05:16.180 I mean, this is almost a luxury item for Canadians now.

00:05:20.680 It's priced so high.

00:05:22.080 Oh, yeah.

00:05:22.520 Well, it's crazy because I know, you know, whether, and I'm not even talking, here's the thing.

00:05:27.080 I'm not even talking grass-fed.

00:05:29.420 I'm not even talking organic.

00:05:31.560 I'm just like.

00:05:31.940 just regular store chemically stimulated chemically grown cattle right which you know

00:05:38.980 they don't even get any regular grass right so you're paying 30 so in alberta they're paying

00:05:46.740 30 a kilogram what are we paying in ontario well the interesting thing is we're paying less than

00:05:53.780 ontario the beef comes from alberta paul yeah i know but we're processing it right again this is

00:05:59.780 like oil right or gas oil and gas but this is like the same thing it goes down to montana gets product

00:06:05.620 process we buy it back at a premium so albertans are sending the raw the cattle to ontario or

00:06:12.260 wherever yeah it's being processed and they're buying it back at higher than we're paying retail

00:06:17.540 rates for the cattle that came from that province yeah i don't know i don't know if they actually

00:06:21.300 talk about it a lot in alberta and the west coast but why are they paying higher rates per kilogram

00:06:26.100 than we are in ontario so that's remarkable so which is crazy and uh nova scotia quite frankly

00:06:33.020 the same now nova scotia makes sense the east coast a little bit because the logistics to get

00:06:37.960 there i understand that but the west coast quite frankly the logistics can't be that difficult

00:06:42.820 right it's not that far especially when it's coming from there so i don't know why it's not

00:06:47.460 like four or five dollars cheaper but anyways that logistics cost must be so huge or it's being

00:06:54.420 justified that way ground beef ground beef the same so having a hamburger in alberta is just as

00:06:59.920 expensive as having a hamburger on the east coast ontario it's cheaper it's cheaper by about two

00:07:05.660 dollars processed volume distribution exactly right hot dogs but you think sorry i'm so sorry

00:07:12.300 but you think that that would be still not enough to make it more expensive than its source province

00:07:19.540 yeah that to me is just ridiculous i mean you're factoring in this to me feels like a scam in a lot

00:07:28.920 of ways i get it it has to come here yeah but the cost by the time it gets here it's obviously marked

00:07:34.920 up in ontario not just the processing and shipping but there's a mark up there that albertans

00:07:40.080 probably didn't bargain for yeah i was shocked but we were out and remember that was the

00:07:46.420 interesting thing our trip out to calgary and when we were eating in restaurants it was the same

00:07:52.980 price it was yeah so we were going to steakhouses we were having you know great barbecue it was the

00:07:59.140 same or more than we would pay in toronto so we weren't finding any incremental difference in food

00:08:04.780 costs from a restaurant perspective so obviously the restaurants weren't passing down any savings

00:08:09.700 they were getting if they and they're not but it doesn't i don't think they are any savings so they

00:08:14.220 were eating the two dollar extra kilogram and charging market rate which you'd pay in any

00:08:19.880 major city in canada you know it's interesting that you say this is uh albertans you're right

00:08:25.900 i don't hear this from them we hear it about oil and gas and frankly the last time i was in calgary

00:08:30.280 about less than a month ago gas was almost the same price that it was in any other province and

00:08:36.080 i thought to myself wow that's that's remarkable i get it now no one albertans complain i'm starting

00:08:42.620 to get it i know me too well you know it's funny because we did that show where we went through

00:08:46.820 across the nation and we looked at uh the price per liter of gas remember and we went to the

00:08:51.980 middle east and we're like you guys corrected me on the show which i was astonished i was so wrong

00:08:56.280 you guys like it's six cents a liter and stuff and i'm like six cents you guys are crazy i was

00:09:01.100 at like 80 cents and you're like no it's six and i'm like i know you were right and when i when we

00:09:05.480 dug into it and i was like oh that's crazy you know you come to the west coast of canada same

00:09:11.360 price we're paying everywhere else so food's just one of those markers that there's no benefit to

00:09:15.820 being any particular place in Canada real estate's really the last passion for that and even it's not

00:09:20.960 making that big a difference now yeah well and so the interesting when we dug into it a little

00:09:25.800 further then we dig into it a little further and what do we find food inflation in Canada

00:09:31.600 is actually the highest in the g7 so we are one of the lowest producing countries in the g7 our

00:09:38.520 GDP is garbage and our food inflation is the highest in the G7.

00:09:42.680 Yeah. 0.78

00:09:44.420 So, you know, if you look at it, we've seen basically in grocery stores,

00:09:49.460 year over year, we've seen a 4.3% increase.

00:09:52.940 So the highest, again, the highest food inflation amongst the G7 countries.

00:09:57.780 And then you look at things like that are...

00:10:08.520 Thank you.

True Patriot Love - July 05, 2026

[Sneak Peek] Food Prices Are Rising… But Why Is Canada Paying More？

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