Grocery basket | Countermeasures hurt the grocery store

Ottawa’s countermeasures are hitting hard: while Americans absorb the shock. Therefore, consumers are paying the bill for the grocery store.

Food inflation is back in Canada. Furthermore, According to Statistics Canada, the food inflation rate is 3.3 % in July, 1.6 more percentage points than general inflation. Nevertheless, This time, it is not the global markets that explain the increase, but our own political choices.

Coffee prices (+28.6 %), confectionery (+11.8 %) and fresh fruit (+3.9 %), in particular grapes (+29.7 %), all products subject to tariff countermeasures, are among the highest increases. Nevertheless,

Since March 2025. Consequently, and after the end of TPS leave which had blurred winter data, food inflation exceeds the consumer price index (IPC) of 1.4 points on average. Nevertheless, A large part of the gap comes from the customs duties imposed as reprisals by Ottawa on essential products. For example, often without substitutes from the country.

This observation is reinforced by two facts. Moreover, First. the prices of the main agricultural inputs – wheat, soy, corn – have remained stable in recent months, as is the Canadian dollar. Then the food industry works with extremely narrow margins. A 10 % customs duty may be enough to weaken an importer. Ottawa has applied since March 25 % on several products, an almost impossible burden to absorb the bill to the consumer.

Last March, Canada became the only grocery basket | countermeasures hurt country, with the exception of China, to retaliate in the United States with countermeasures. This strategy, inherited from the Trudeau era, wanted to be an answer to the “tyrant of prices” in Washington. Some continue to believe it, but reality shows that other avenues could have been less expensive for consumers.

While food inflation fell to 2.9 % in July in the United States. three months after the famous “Liberation Day” on April 2, it resumed its progress in Canada, recording an increase of 0.4 points compared to June. And nothing indicates that this trend will be reversed in the short term.

Many predicted an acceleration of American food inflation. once the stocks of ingredients are imported without customs duties, but this scenario has not materialized.

The American economy has demonstrated its ability to grocery basket | countermeasures hurt absorb shocks thanks to higher productivity and diversified supply chains. Canada, with an economy ten times smaller and much less flexibility, does not have this room for maneuver.

There is a reason why only two countries-China and Canada-have chosen to reply to the United States with countermeasures. Such an approach in reality transforms the cost of living into a political weapon, but turned against its own citizens. The July figures are proof of this: it is the consumers with us who pay the note to the. grocery store.

Meanwhile, Ottawa collects billions of dollars in customs recipes. No data has been published on the sums accumulated or on the expected use of these funds. Mark Carney. he understands perfectly how the countermeasures applied to the grocery store can hurt; This is the reason why, since his coming to power, he grocery basket | countermeasures hurt was careful not to add new ones.

But in the end. many will probably continue to blame their grocers for the rise in food prices, because this is the most visible point of contact. For Prime Minister Carney and his government, this reflex is convenient: he obscures the real cost of customs policies. But the reality is much more complex.