Tory Redux

Tag: Canadian politics

  • Canada is leading the G7 in food inflation. 

    Stock image of a person buying groceries

    In 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney told Canadians to judge his government by the price of groceries. It was a bold promise and a fair one. Food is the most honest economic indicator there is. No spin. No press release. Just the bill at the till.

    The average Canadian family is now forced to spend more than $1,000 extra a year. This expense is just to put food on the table.

    With food inflation soaring, this is no longer about affording niceties. People are struggling to afford essentials. Canada now has some of the worst food inflation in the G7. Europe and the United States can lower prices. Why can’t Canada do the same? The burden falls hardest on those who can least afford it. Unsurprisingly, food bank use has surged across the country in recent years.

    For generations, the Canadian deal was simple: a modest life built around simple meals, meat and potatoes on the table. Even that fundamental promise is breaking down. Canadians are being priced out of essentials, and our country is topping all the wrong lists. According to recent agri-food data, staples like coffee and beef were once everyday items. Now they are among the products most affected by food inflation.

    This isn’t just an economic problem. It’s a societal one. When people can’t afford the basics, they lose faith that hard work will ever get them ahead. And when healthier food options become unaffordable, families are pushed toward cheaper, highly processed alternatives.

    That has real consequences. Poorer diets lead to worse health outcomes, more chronic illness, and greater strain on an already overburdened health-care system. Food prices are effectively a shadow tax. This tax hits low- and middle-income Canadians the hardest. It reduces quality of life and cuts productive years short.

    When Canadians can’t afford to eat well, the cost doesn’t disappear. The effects later in hospitals. There is also lost productivity. Additionally, there is a growing sense that it is no longer working for them.

    When governments tax production, transportation, and energy, families pay at the checkout. If other G7 countries can bring prices down, Canada can too—but only if affordability becomes a priority again

  • The Hidden Costs of Canada’s Growing Debt

    Canada will spend more than $55.6 billion this fiscal year on interest payments alone. Not on strengthening public services. Not on affordability. Not on anything that actually improves people’s lives. Just interest on a debt that keeps growing because governments refuse to live within their means

    That’s the part too often glossed over. Interest isn’t an investment. It creates nothing. It builds nothing. It simply drains resources that could be helping families who are struggling to keep up with the cost of living.

    The harsh truth is this: most of that burden won’t fall on us. It will fall on the next generation. They’ll inherit the bill for choices they never made.

    Fiscal responsibility isn’t about accounting. It’s about fairness. And right now, we’re failing that test.

  • Carney’s “Fiscal Anchor” Was Never an Anchor at All

    Carney’s “Fiscal Anchor” Was Never an Anchor at All

    The Parliamentary Budget Officer cut through the noise this week. They did what Ottawa refuses to do. They told the truth about the books. Carney’s so-called “balanced operating budget” wasn’t a plan, a discipline, or anything resembling a real anchor. It was creative accounting dressed up as credibility.

    The PBO lays it out plainly; the anchor is not credible. The government has been shifting definitions and moving pieces around. It also relies on accounting tricks. These tricks smooth over the reality of rising spending and ballooning debt. Balancing the operating budget was always a political slogan, not a fiscal guardrail.

    This matters. When your anchor is fake, your entire budget drifts. And right now, Canada is drifting into more profound deficits, higher interest payments, and fewer choices for the next generation.

    Carney can put a shine on it. The PBO pulled the shine off.

    And the numbers speak for themselves.