Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced new measures to address rising food prices and food insecurity as part of the government’s broader response to the cost-of-living crisis. The announcement includes short-term, targeted relief for Canadians through the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefits, which will temporarily increase the amount individuals receive via the GST credit. Other new measures also include investments to support food banks, small and medium food producers, supply chains, and additional support to monitor competition in the grocery market. The government also committed to developing a National Food Security Strategy.

This announcement is an important acknowledgement of what people across Canada are feeling. Grocery prices are becoming harder to afford, more people are relying on food banks, and the pressure is falling hardest on those with the least room to absorb rising costs. Measures such as an increase in the GST rebate may help ease financial pressures for some households, and while that support matters for people already stretched to the limit, it is just a temporary band-aid solution. But when affordability keeps returning as a crisis, we have to ask a bigger question: why are the basics of life – food, rent, dignity – becoming out of reach for so many people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world?

This affordability crisis is not happening in isolation. It is a sign of a deeper and more serious problem – extreme wealth inequality. While millions of people struggle to afford groceries, billionaire wealth continues to grow. In 2025, Canada was home to approximately 89 billionaires. In just one year, the wealth of the richest 40 grew by nearly $95 billion. At the same time, more than one in four people in Canada lived in food-insecure households, and hundreds of thousands experienced homelessness. Today, the richest one per cent in Canada hold almost as much wealth as the bottom 80 per cent combined. This growing gap weakens economic security, social cohesion, and democracy. Oxfam Canada’s Wealth Inequality report shows how this extreme concentration of wealth is directly linked to Canada’s ongoing affordability crisis.

With inequality this severe, additional funding for food banks may help meet immediate needs, but it also raises an uncomfortable reality. Are food banks becoming a permanent feature of Canada’s social safety net? In a country as wealthy as ours, relying on charity to ensure people can eat should concern us all.

When governments talk about affordability, it is often framed as a short-term problem. Prices go up, people are struggling, so relief is needed. While that is true, it is not the whole story. Affordability cannot be solved with short-term fixes. As food prices rise, so do other basic costs, like rent, housing, and healthcare. Wages haven’t kept pace, wealth is increasingly concentrated, and a small number of large corporations wield outsized control over the price of essentials and over who can afford them.

Temporary actions can ease the pressure, but they do not fix the problems that make life unaffordable. The super-rich and large corporations will not automatically put affordability ahead of profit or growing their wealth. Affordability must be protected through better public policy, as stopgaps are not enough to make life secure for ordinary people.

If Canada is serious about ending the affordability crisis, bold action is needed. This includes:

• Capping prices on essential grocery items to ensure access to an inflation-proof basket of goods, alongside improving access to affordable housing and strengthening income supports.
• Implementing a progressive wealth tax to redistribute wealth and power. Even a modest tax on wealth could raise an additional $121 billion over five years – revenue that could be reinvested in food security, healthcare, childcare, affordable housing and stronger social protections.
• Implement a permanent excess profits tax to curb Canadian corporations from profiteering during times of crises.

The government’s announcement is a start. But short-term measures alone will not reduce the number of people lining up at food banks, and they will not stop billions of dollars from continuing to pile up at the top, largely untaxed. Ending the recurring affordability crisis means confronting extreme wealth inequality. By taxing the super-rich, putting in place an excess profits tax on large corporations, and closing loopholes that allow wealth to escape our borders to be held offshore, Canada can fund the systems that make life affordable for everyone. Join us in calling on the government to tax the super-rich.