Ottawa, ON – For months in the House of Commons, Carney’s Ministers have been repeating their PMO talking points, denying that Liberal hidden taxes on food are driving up costs for Canadians, including at the grocery store.

“These are imaginary taxes in the brain of the Leader of the Opposition that no one else seems to manage,” Steven MacKinnon, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, said. “There is no tax on food. There will never be a tax on food.”

Is this more Liberal spin? Let’s break down the four taxes to see their impact:

The Clean Fuel Regulations

Since July 2023, the Liberals have required that gasoline and diesel used in Canada must meet carbon-intensity reduction requirements. This increases the cost of living because every regulatory requirement has a compliance cost. Companies are required to either blend more expensive (often imported) lower-carbon fuels or buy compliance credits. Each cost is passed on to consumers. 

That is also what makes the tax hidden. When consumers look at their receipt, they won’t see the cost of the tax. Instead, it’s baked in with higher prices whenever they purchase gasoline or diesel. According to the Liberal government’s own Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), using data from Environment and Climate Change Canada, it adds 7 cents per litre this year, and will rise to 17 cents per litre in 2030.

This cost doesn’t just apply when Canadians fill up at the pump. When gasoline and diesel cost more, businesses face higher operating costs at every stage of production and delivery. This includes running farm equipment, shipping food to producers and transporting goods to warehouses and stores. Every step with a higher cost for fuel means higher prices for consumers.

By 2030, the PBO estimated the annual household cost would average $573 a year. Based on the data the Liberal government provided, they also found that the regulations would reduce Canada’s real GDP by up to $9.0 billion in 2030. That’s more than the entire economic output of Prince Edward Island in 2024.

The Industrial Carbon Tax

While Carney set the consumer carbon tax price to $0, the Liberals have kept the industrial carbon tax, which continues to increase each year until reaching $170 per tonne in 2030. They claim the tax only applies to large companies, but just like the Clean Fuel Regulations, the price is baked into everything Canadians buy.

When the government taxes the factories, refineries, power plants, and farms that make and move the things you rely on, those costs don’t disappear. They get passed on to you in higher prices for things like gas, electricity, groceries, and housing. Every step it takes to grow food, process it, refrigerate it, package it, and ship it uses energy that’s taxed.

As Sylvain Charlebois, Professor of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, noted, the industrial carbon tax “continues to erode competitiveness in the agri-food sector. Many Canadians are unaware that processors and growers shoulder heavy costs, particularly in comparison to their U.S. counterparts.” This explains why food inflation is double what it is down south, and according to Charlebois, “The cost gap is growing, not shrinking.”

Inflation

Inflation is the worst form of silent taxation caused by government spending that increases food prices and is caused by increases in the monetary supply. Under Mark Carney, the deficit in his recent budget is double the previous Fall Economic Statement.

Increasing government spending decreases investment as government bonds crowd out other options for investors. As the amount of money in the economy increases, so too does the cost of goods. Combined, this means that we get less innovation and productivity, meaning weaker paycheques for workers to pay for a higher cost of living.

For food, this adds up to almost $1,000 more per year at the grocery store to feed a family of four, according to the 2026 Food Price Report. That’s on top of the increase we already saw last year, with a 6.2 per cent increase in food prices from December 2024 to 2025. Among the biggest year-over-year price increases, roasted or ground coffee surged 41.2 per cent, coffee and tea spiked 26.5 per cent, and fresh or frozen beef sharply rose 16.8 per cent.

Food Packaging Tax

For restaurants, fast food and take-out establishments, the increasing cost of food is compounded with the costs of the Single-use Plastics Prohibition. It applies to cutlery, containers, boxes, cups, plates, bowls and straws used in the food service industry. This tax on food packaging is projected, by the Liberal government, to cost $1.3 billion from implementation. 

The food packaging tax comes after 7,000 restaurants were already forced to shut down in 2025 during a time when restaurant bills increased by 8.5 per cent year-over-year. According to a projection from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, another 4,000 will close their doors this year, as both restaurants and Canadians struggle to keep up ever ever-higher prices

All of these policies add costs to the food Canadians buy. Conservatives call costs imposed by the government what they are: a tax. This is clearly not a global problem, or we would see other countries facing these same issues. Instead, food inflation in Canada is double the US and the highest in the G7, double what it was when Carney became Prime Minister.

While Liberals deny their policies make life more expensive, Canadians continue to struggle with rising costs at the grocery store. It’s time to make life more affordable by axing the fuel standard and industrial carbon tax, ending inflationary spending and scrapping the food packaging tax.