Following his cabinet swearing-in ceremony in May, Prime Minister Mark Carney said one way for Canadians to judge the performance of his government would be “by their experience at the grocery store.”

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada on December’s food inflation rate, Carney gets a failing grade.

While the annual inflation rate rose to 2.4% from 2.2% in November — higher than expected — the cost of food purchased at grocery stores continued to increase at more than double the headline inflation rate at 5%.

Staples such as coffee (30.8%) and fresh or frozen beef (16.8%) “remained the largest contributors to the increase,” according to the federal data-collection agency.

But that’s just the latest in a stream of bad news on the cost of food.

Little relief expected in 2026

Last month, Statistics Canada reported that grocery prices rose 4.7% year over year in November after increasing 3.4% in October.

Postmedia columnist Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, noted food inflation has exceeded the headline inflation rate every month since June 2024, save for the federally mandated GST holiday months from December 2024 to February 2025.

He described that as a temporary fix which did nothing to address the root causes of food inflation.

Citing an 8.5% increase in the cost of restaurant food in December, Charlebois said Canada’s combined food inflation rate of 6.2% is highest in the G7, ahead of Japan (6.1%), U.K. (4.2%), U.S. (3.1%), Italy (2.6%), France (1.7%) and Germany (1.4%).

Nor is food inflation expected to slow down this year.

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A report by Dalhousie in conjunction with other Canadian universities last month predicted food prices will rise 4-6% this year, costing the average family of four $1,000 more to purchase the same amount of food as in 2025.

Of course, food inflation is affected by some factors the federal government can’t control, but Charlebois said the biggest culprits are policy driven including excessive regulations, interprovincial trade barriers, poor logistics, rising compliance costs and carbon pricing embedded throughout the supply chain system.

“Food inflation is no longer a passing storm,” Charlebois said, adding the problems have been developing for almost two decades.

“It is a warning signal (that) Canada so far is choosing to ignore.”