Tuesday February 21, 2023 | VANCOUVER ISLAND, BC [Updated February 25, 2023]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Today NDP critic for Food Price Inflation Alistair MacGregor reminded Canadians about the scorching hot price of food, which keeps on rising.
Today the rate of food inflation was reported by Statistics Canada as 11.4% in January. That’s a year over year comparison of food costs in Canada. Prices for meat, bakery goods and vegetables all rose faster, it was stated by Statistics Canada.
By comparison, the overall rate of inflation went down a bit to 5.9% (it was 6.3% in December’s stats which is lower than the 8.1% seen in June 2022).
Global impacts:
The impacts on food pricing and availability include:
- the impacts of climate change on agriculture (such as drought),
- the impacts of the pandemic on labour availability (notably in China),
- the impacts of the war in Ukraine (from where a lot of grains and oils are supplied to the world market).
Can’t cut back much further:
But food is not something people can cut back on any more than they probably are now. Food costs have been consistently increasing since July 2022.
Statistics Canada reports some pricing easing between December 2022 and January 2023 on some food products including lettuce, canned and other preserved fish, breakfast cereal and other cereal products, rice and rice-based mixes, and oranges but prices are still much higher than a year ago.
Families need help:
“Families are doing everything right – and still they’re having to cut back on the bare necessities to afford their grocery bills,” says NDP Food Price Inflation Critic Alistair MacGregor (MLA for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford).
“But as inflation stabilizes, food prices are still climbing: making the role of greedflation clearer than ever,” said MacGregor.
A few weeks ago MacGregor led the Food and AgriFood Committee to push for CEOs of the largest grocery store chains (Loblaw, Metro and Empire) to testify before the committee. Something he spoke about in the House of Commons last week, around Canada Agriculture Day on February 15.
The five biggest grocery chains control 80 per cent of all the food people in Canada consume.
“We can stop incentivizing and rewarding corporations for ripping people off,” said MacGregor today in a news release.
Local shopping:
Meanwhile, local grocery stores are doing what they can to help customers cope.
At Village Food Markets in Sooke they try to put basics like bread, milk and beans for sale pretty much at-cost. That’s something they’ve always done but pay particular attention to that during the continuing inflation, said store manager Ed Banys recently.
At Lifestyle Markets in Victoria they offer “best value in every department” as a regular matter of store management, says store owner Carmine Sparanese.
===== RELATED:
Grocery chain CEOs being summoned to address Agriculture-AgriFood Committee (Feb 14, 2023)
Alistair MacGregor leads NDP investigation into high food prices (Feb 13, 2023)
BC food security direction includes watchful eye on California (Feb 6, 2023)
Large grocery corp profit debate continues as people turn to food banks (Dec 4, 2023)
ARCHIVES: POLITICS | VANCOUVER ISLAND | FOOD SECURITY
===== ABOUT THE WRITER:
Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Cert PR is a long-time journalist, delivering news through a socioeconomic lens through Island Social Trends.
Based on the west shore of south Vancouver Island, her publication IslandSocialTrends.ca covers news of the Greater Victoria area, south Vancouver Island, with insights on BC and national issues.
Ms Brooke has consistently covered progressive politics on Vancouver Island including a focus on food security for the South Vancouver Island region.
Among many other credentials, Mary Brooke holds a B.Sc. in Food and Nutrition.
ARCHIVES: POLITICS | VANCOUVER ISLAND | FOOD SECURITY
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