Grocery bills set to climb again as more Canadians struggle to put food on the table
Nationwide inflation has hit a 30-year high and Canadians are feeling the pinch almost every time they pull out their credit card.
But perhaps the most concerning cost increase is one that's impossible to avoid: more and more are finding it hard to put food on the table.
New numbers from Angus Reid suggest 57 per cent of polled Canadians find feeding their household difficult. That's up from 36 per cent in April 2019.
In 2021, the price for groceries climbed year-over-year by 5.7 per cent: the largest jump in a decade. And things will almost certainly get harder in 2022.
"We're not expecting prices to drop any time soon and promotions are going to be rare," food supply and policy expert Sylvain Charlebois said. "Because of what's going on with the (truckers' vaccine mandate at the) border, produce is going to be a challenge. Dairy will also be a challenge, and bakery."
The Canadian Dairy Commission – citing pandemic disruptions – has called for a February raw milk price hike.
Much of the cost will be unloaded onto consumers.
"It could be as much as 15 per cent," Charlebois told CTV News.
The advice from experts?
Limit waste by taking more trips to the store, if you feel safe.
On a larger scale, supply chain observers say governments need to stop relying on inconsistent channels.
"We need supply chain network redesign," Dr. Rajbir Bhatti said. "If things have to be brought in, they run the risk of disruption. We don't know how many units of what we are going to get by next weekend. Forecasting has become a huge problem."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Thanks to wildfires, air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Toronto family doctor who called patient's body 'perfect' suspended for 3 months: tribunal
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.