Inside the Senate Agriculture Committee hearings where witnesses warned that Canada’s food supply chain is a national security liability hiding in plain sight.
The testimony you’ve surfaced here deserves a much wider audience than it will get through official channels. Canadians are living the consequences of these policy failures every time they shop, every time a rural community loses another processing facility, every time a northern family pays three times what southerners pay for the same food. This is the conversation we are not having nearly enough, and our future depends on having it. Outstanding work.
I'm really glad that people are more and more likely to talk about these problems. It was once a status quo problem, but the problem has been steadily growing worse. I really hope we have finally (started) to turn the corner.
My favourite Bick’s garlic pickles! The iconic name brand found nowhere else in the world. Bought out by Americans years ago and production in Green Bay Wisconsin, using - wait for it - Canadian cucumbers! A shame for sure….
In a discussion with a friend about the state of the economy recently, she posed the question whether I believed Canada was still an industrialized nation. My first reaction was "Of course!" but the more I think about that question, I'm less confident of such. We've outsourced so much of our basic requirements, we are no longer sustainable without international imports.
If Canada cannot efficiently grow peanuts at scale, why impose tariffs on peanut products? We still have to import the underlying agricultural input. The tariff raises consumer prices, protects domestic processors from competition, and may create an industry that only survives because consumers are forced to pay more.
We should be more concerned about processing what we do grow locally. I don't eat many peanuts, but I do eat potatoes, pork, lettuce, tomatoes and many other things that we should be growing and processing in Canada, but we don't and that needs to change.
I pulled the federal government's own briefing note on this. Canada is self-sufficient in potash and a net exporter of nitrogen fertilizer, with 45 percent of nitrogen production shipped abroad. GJS is right on that point. But the same note shows Eastern Canada often imports fertilizer because rail from western production is more expensive than buying overseas. The Senate witnesses were likely pointing at that regional gap, not total national output. Production exists. Distribution to where farmers need it does not always follow.
The testimony you’ve surfaced here deserves a much wider audience than it will get through official channels. Canadians are living the consequences of these policy failures every time they shop, every time a rural community loses another processing facility, every time a northern family pays three times what southerners pay for the same food. This is the conversation we are not having nearly enough, and our future depends on having it. Outstanding work.
Thank you for the kind words Leni!
I am excited that you read this as well. I was thinking of your articles as I read this!
I'm really glad that people are more and more likely to talk about these problems. It was once a status quo problem, but the problem has been steadily growing worse. I really hope we have finally (started) to turn the corner.
My favourite Bick’s garlic pickles! The iconic name brand found nowhere else in the world. Bought out by Americans years ago and production in Green Bay Wisconsin, using - wait for it - Canadian cucumbers! A shame for sure….
In a discussion with a friend about the state of the economy recently, she posed the question whether I believed Canada was still an industrialized nation. My first reaction was "Of course!" but the more I think about that question, I'm less confident of such. We've outsourced so much of our basic requirements, we are no longer sustainable without international imports.
If Canada cannot efficiently grow peanuts at scale, why impose tariffs on peanut products? We still have to import the underlying agricultural input. The tariff raises consumer prices, protects domestic processors from competition, and may create an industry that only survives because consumers are forced to pay more.
We should be more concerned about processing what we do grow locally. I don't eat many peanuts, but I do eat potatoes, pork, lettuce, tomatoes and many other things that we should be growing and processing in Canada, but we don't and that needs to change.
"Senators also heard that North America has zero fertilizer production capacity. None."
Excuse me. Canada is the world's leading producer and exporter of potash and a top-tier producer of nitrogen-based fertilizers.
I pulled the federal government's own briefing note on this. Canada is self-sufficient in potash and a net exporter of nitrogen fertilizer, with 45 percent of nitrogen production shipped abroad. GJS is right on that point. But the same note shows Eastern Canada often imports fertilizer because rail from western production is more expensive than buying overseas. The Senate witnesses were likely pointing at that regional gap, not total national output. Production exists. Distribution to where farmers need it does not always follow.