Canadians look to Carney’s first budget for relief from rising food, housing costs

Tuesday’s budget could literally be a “bread and butter” issue for many Canadians.

That follows the years of rising prices that created Canada’s affordability crisis.

With people struggling to afford things like groceries and housing, the question is whether Prime Minister Mark Carney and his government are going to help and they’re getting some specific recommendations on what they should be doing.

In the past year, the Dalhousie University food price report says Canada’s food prices have gone up four per cent, with no relief expected.

Food economist Sylvain Charlebois says what would help is the government focusing on the overall affordability crisis.

READ MORE: Ottawa launching dispute process against Stellantis over auto production relocation

“Anything that has to do with the cost of living. Because if you reduce the cost of living people will have more money to spend on food,” Charlebois says.

He adds that one way to do that would be for Ottawa to take the lead in bringing down interprovincial trade barriers, making meat and produce cheaper.

He says there’s been a lot of talk about trade barriers but not much action.

“We do believe a family could save 300 to 500 dollars a year if you are to empower many companies to sell beyond their own province,” says Charlebois.

READ MORE: Carney government to table fall budget, deficit could hit $90B

Along the same lines, Restaurants Canada says its members with over a million employees are struggling as increasing costs keep Canadians from spending on restaurants and take out. A big help would be to eliminate the GST on food.

“What we’ve modelled out is that we’d be creating 65,000 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs to the sector if the GST were pulled off of food,” says Kelly Higginson from Restaurants Canada.

“We’re also going to see an increase in the day-to-day quality of life for Canadians. We’ve got 23 million Canadians every day that go and make a purchase from a restaurant.”

WATCH MORE: ‘Love local, shop local’: Hamilton Day encourages support of local businesses

And independent businesses say they’re looking for small business tax cuts in the face of Canada’s trade war with Donald Trump, along with inflation and low consumer demand.

“Small business owners are getting hit from all sides. Costs are going up, consumer demand is down, unpredictability is at an all-time high, ultimately there needs to be stability, there needs to be predictability, and there needs to be some financial reprieve in this budget,” says Christina Santini from the Independent Business Federation.

Along with food prices and affordability, the government is under pressure to bring down the cost of housing by getting more homes built.

Housing researcher Carolyn Whitzman says there are developers ready to build low- to moderate-income housing once Ottawa provides the investment money.

“I know that there are a whole bunch of non-market developers who are raring to go with shovel-ready projects in Hamilton, and in Muskoka and in Haliburton and in Toronto and in Peel and so I’m really looking forward to drawing a line under this very uncertain period and creating some housing that’s really going to make a difference,” says Carolyn Whitzman, a University of Toronto Housing Researcher.

The experts say the government was distracted over the past year by the Liberal leadership race and the federal election. Now they say it’s time to get down to business.

WATCH MORE: Hamilton residents decorate for a good cause this Halloween