Franco Terrazzano

Troy Media

 The federal government is putting on a masterclass about how to increase the cost of living. It’s doing everything from raising taxes during the middle of a pandemic to massive government borrowing and money printing. Now the question is: will any politician do anything to fight inflation?

The latest report from Statistics Canada shows prices jumping 4.7 per cent over the year. That’s the highest annual price increase in nearly two decades.

A primary driver of this inflation is soaring energy prices.

 “Energy prices were up 25.5 per cent year over year in October, primarily driven by an increase in gasoline prices,” according to Statistics Canada.

 Making it more expensive to fuel your car and heat your home is the goal of the federal carbon tax, which has increased twice during the pandemic. In April, the carbon tax will rise again, this time to 11 cents per litre of gasoline.

 Carbon tax hikes don’t stop there. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he will increase his carbon tax to nearly 40 cents per litre by 2030 and impose a second carbon tax through fuel regulations that could add an extra 11 cents to the per litre pump price.

 What has the Official Opposition said about rising gas prices?

 Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole wants to impose two carbon taxes of his own that will soak a family for $20 every time they fuel up their minivan.

 Canadian politicians could immediately provide relief at the pumps. South Korea just reduced its gas taxes by 20 per cent, and India is providing relief too.

 “The reduction in excise duty on petrol and diesel will also boost consumption and keep inflation low, thus helping the poor and middle classes,” reads the Indian government’s news release.

 Canadians are even facing higher taxes every time they pick up a six-pack or a bottle of wine. Taxes now account for about half of the price of beer, 65 per cent of the price of wine and more than three-quarters of the price of spirits.

 Another source of higher prices is the government’s printing press, which has been on overdrive during the pandemic. When the government prints more dollars, the dollars in your salary and savings account buy less.

 The central bank has created $370 billion during the pandemic by purchasing financial assets such as government debt. That 300-per-cent growth in the Bank of Canada’s assets far outpaces the growth that occurred during the recessions of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In fact, it far outstrips the growth from the beginning of 2008 until the beginning of the pandemic.

 What is the central bank buying with its freshly printed dollars? Government of Canada debt makes up 85 per cent of the assets the Bank of Canada buys. That means the government is financing a good chunk of its deficits by devaluing your money.

 The obvious first step to rein in this inflation tax would be to stop creating so much government debt for the Bank of Canada to purchase in the first place.

 But every federal party leader just spent the last election promising more government borrowing. The Liberal Party, Conservative Party and New Democratic Party promised to increase spending by $78 billion, $51 billion and $214 billion respectively.

 Families are getting soaked by higher prices while politicians are asleep at the wheel. The government needs to cut taxes and stop borrowing, but politicians want to raise taxes and spend billions more. It’s time for politicians to wake up from their slumber and provide Canadians with a concrete plan to stop these rising prices.

Franco Terrazzano is the Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Sylvain Charlebois

Troy Media

Hunger is cruelly invisible in our society. Even though it may surround us, we hardly see it. But it’s always there.

With the latest Hunger Count published by Food Banks Canada, we have a better idea of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Canada’s food insecurity landscape. The news isn’t great.

According to an internal survey of food bank operators, the number of visits has gone up by more than 20 per cent in the last two years. The highest observed increases were in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. In Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the rate of food bank visits decreased, but not by much. Visits to food banks in rural communities have gone down by 3.8 per cent.

More Canadians are going hungry while our cost of living skyrockets. It’s not likely to get easier any time soon.

According to the report, food banks in larger urban centres were more likely to see very high increases in visits, likely driven by pandemic-related unemployment and layoffs. They were also more likely to see racialized groups. Food banks in smaller urban centres were more likely to see seniors and people with disabilities.

As a result, the report states, the pandemic has magnified systemic inequities in our society, despite all the programs put in place during the pandemic, worth well over $400 billion worth.

During the pandemic, $200 million was added to the Emergency Food Security Fund so food banks, related agencies and Indigenous organizations can keep helping struggling Canadians put food on the table. That funding was understandably beneficial for the food bank network during these unprecedented times.

The pandemic really showed why food banks need to exist and how they play an essential role in our economy. No government programs can deploy aid and respond as quickly or efficiently to market failures or systemic crises such as a pandemic.

Programs created during the pandemic, such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), were quickly operationalized and delivered much-needed help to millions. That was an exceptional situation since the crisis hit the entire world almost at once.

But in normal times, there’s always a community out there or a family suddenly hit by food insecurity. Food banks are there to help right away. Food banks are anyone’s CERB, outside a pandemic. It’s as simple as that.

Food banks are communities helping communities. They often represent a network of people who want to help, working with those who need it.

And food banks are no longer warehouses in some obscure part of town. Most of them are no longer in the business of simply supplying calories to people needing food. The focus is mainly wellness and helping individuals and families get back on their feet. And they’re about pride, not shame, about joy, not chronic sorrow.

Miracles happen almost daily at food banks, but few people outside the network will notice. Food banks provide help without prejudice. They need to be celebrated, as they are truly wonders of the human spirit.

If you can, you should take a minute to support your local food bank with a monetary donation. They know how to work with cash and multiply dollars into thousands of meals. It’s impressive.

Food banks obviously also need donated food to operate. They rely on generous farmers, processors, grocers, events, and individual private donors to replenish their warehouses and networks.

But as we rescue more food across supply chains, food banks will be challenged by having less access to food surplus. Food costs are going up, which will likely make us all more frugal and careful with the food we buy and consume every day. Food banks will have to get more creative to procure food by working with new partners.

With the pandemic almost behind us, it will finally be easier for them to run campaigns safely again and rely on volunteers.

And finally, another noteworthy statistic from the report: 46 per cent of food bank visitors live alone.

Many Canadians face a perfect storm of having to deal with higher housing and food costs while not benefiting from higher wages. And with our ageing population, the number of people in Canada living alone will increase. Close to 32 per cent of households will have only one person by 2025.

We need to think about this as we try to help those who will experience acute food insecurity.Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.

By Sylvain Charlebois

Professor

Dalhousie University

COP26 is just around the corner – the 26th United Nations climate change conference starts in Glasgow on Oct. 31.

During the two-week summit, delegates face the colossal task of bridging the gap between the climate commitments made in 2015 with the Paris climate accord and the significant transformations needed to tackle our current climate situation.

This global summit is meant to give the planet a new, more pragmatic focus on what we need to do to reduce carbon emissions and meet our Paris goals. Canada has agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The planet is experiencing an increasing number of extreme and unprecedented weather patterns. Last summer, the Northern Hemisphere was hit by extreme drought and heatwaves in Russia, Canada and the United States. Floods also affected parts of Europe.

All of that is in part why procuring inputs for food companies has been a challenge. Consequently, food prices are going up everywhere in the world, including Canada. Consumers are seeing first-hand how climate impacts their pocketbooks.

The fact that Mother Nature is affecting food prices isn’t new. What is new is how frequent and acute weather patterns have become. Even climate-change skeptics are starting to realize the world is offering the agri-food sector a new normal to deal with.

The challenge with these climate events is twofold.

For one, they often attract the same policy junkies who will figure out a path to save the world from itself without celebrating some of the things we’ve already done to help the planet. Others won’t understand how agriculture and the agri-food sector have adapted to an unforgiving climate.

Farmers, arguably the best environmental stewards in the world, have come a long way with more sustainable practices. Those with farms of some scale have largely been faithful to the ongoing progress of soil and animal science, which needs to be celebrated.

Any effort to sequester carbon needs to be rewarded across the food supply chain, starting at farmgate. The stick approach largely dominated by a carbon tax can be influential, but so will carrots, especially in the agri-food sector. In that sector, risks must be avoided at all costs, given the low margins and the competitive environment most companies operate in.

Secondly, for far too long, many people have weaponized science to discredit policy tools that would implement sustainable changes. The activists fostering the woke culture and the climate-change skeptics need to stay clear of this process. COP26 needs to cut through the noise and get the world to appreciate the true value of some mechanisms at our disposal to make our planet a cleaner place.

Pricing carbon, for example, is arguably one of the most powerful tools to curb carbon emissions. The concept of a carbon tax isn’t popular in some spheres but it’s not as bad as some groups would suggest, especially for Canada.

With our abundant land, access to clean water and clean energy, Canada’s agri-food sector is poised to do well in a world in which carbon is priced effectively. It’s not a coincidence that we’ve recently seen companies like AB InBev, Kraft Heinz, Lovingly, Nestle and Roquette invest in Canada by building new processing plants. A stronger, more robust domestic processing sector will empower our agri-food sector to control its carbon footprint.

For the longest time, global food supply chains were designed and motivated by our collective race to the bottom, looking for the cheapest deal possible for producing, processing or packaging our food. For example, eating peaches grown in Argentina, processed in Malaysia and bought here was quite common.

The goal to offer low prices will obviously remain, but an economy that prices carbon will compel companies to seek different markets with more localized operations.

We expect more nearshoring or onshoring in Canada for the next while, which can be good for Canada but only if other countries are reciprocal with their carbon taxes. That’s why COP26 and achieving our goals at the same time is critical.

However, we need to leave our farmers alone when pricing carbon since they don’t have the ability to pass extra costs down the food chain. That’s why it was vital that Bill C-206, to exempt all farm fuels from the federal carbon tax, received Royal assent weeks before the Sept. 20 federal election.

But there’s one major problem. The carbon tax in Canada is set to reach $170 a tonne by 2030 and will hit $50 a tonne next year, as promised by the newly-elected Liberal government.

Nobody really knows how such a high tax will affect food security for consumers. The federal government either doesn’t have any information on the issue – no report or analysis – or hasn’t made anything public. And we all need to know.Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.

by Ken Coates
Troy Media

Something strange has been happening on the road to true reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission produced clear recommendations on how the country could shed the bitter legacy of Indigenous residential schools. Yet, following revelations about gravesites near formal residential schools, the process seems to have morphed into measures designed to serve non-Indigenous people more than Indigenous communities.

Consider the federal government’s creation of a national holiday to commemorate residential schools. Simply put, the vast majority of non-Indigenous Canadians will likely take the holiday as nothing more than a day of rest. It is difficult to imagine this event becoming a turning point in reconciliation. Indeed, making non-Indigenous peoples the significant beneficiary of a national holiday appears an odd way to recognize the hardships and losses of Indigenous children and their families.

Many of the educational efforts associated with reconciliation – elementary and high school curriculum reform, the hiring of Indigenous faculty members at universities and the imposition of mandatory courses in many programs – are likewise targeted significantly at non-Indigenous peoples.

Undoubtedly, Indigenous students will benefit from access to Indigenous lecturers, role models, mentors, and course materials. Yet much of the effort will likely be directed at non-Indigenous students. Such educational opportunities may produce well-rounded and favourable attitudes to Indigenous peoples, but the results remain uncertain.

Across the country, major corporations, including resource firms, have embraced reconciliation with considerable commitment. They have secured guidance from Indigenous academics and community leaders. Government policies, likewise, have prioritized Indigenous voices and preferences, changing fundamentally the way major projects are adjudicated in Canada. To a significant but far from ideal degree, Indigenous peoples and perspectives are being recognized and respected.

To create an environment of true and sustainable reconciliation, we need Indigenous specialists and knowledge keepers. Indigenous leaders receive many requests to advise, assist and support non-Indigenous efforts. There is, in many instances, an earnest desire among educational organizations, companies, government agencies, and civil society more broadly to learn more about Indigenous cultures, history and current circumstances.

Becoming educated about Indigenous issues is a vital outcome for reconciliation. But serving these needs places heavy demands on Indigenous educators, leaders, elders, and knowledge keepers. Often, this work is not remunerated or is poorly paid. Frequently, the primary beneficiaries of these efforts are non-Indigenous Canadians.

Reconciliation in Canada, as a result, involves training, cultural awareness initiatives, program and process reviews, and educational outreach, all largely directed at non-Indigenous peoples, alongside commemorative events for the country at large. Indigenous peoples now play the roles of teachers, trainers, mediators, and curriculum developers.

Indigenous peoples are not completely ignored of course. To a lesser extent, the federal government (and non-governmental institutions) had taken steps to address the symptoms and outcomes of Indigenous marginalization. In fact, the Trudeau government has been extraordinarily keen to provide financial resources and even greater autonomy to Indigenous governments. There has been progress in many areas, from education to water supplies, but gaps between Indigenous people and other Canadians remain distressingly high.

Canadians clearly desire better outcomes, but there is no consensus on the best way to address the current and lingering challenges facing Indigenous peoples and communities.

Reconciliation is a difficult and often fraught process. Overcoming years of bitterness and animosity, and moving beyond decades of racism and prejudice, is exceptionally difficult.

There are good examples of positive developments, such as the Yukon, where a series of modern treaties, self-government agreements and a whole-of-government commitment to reconciliation provide a constructive (albeit still imperfect) model.

Compared to 40 years ago, Canadian attitudes toward Indigenous peoples are much more favourable. But the lived experience of Indigenous peoples often tells a different story, with numerous recent examples of prejudice and racial discrimination.

While unusual and far from ideal, Canada’s approach to reconciliation contains a crucial lesson for all Canadians. Despite years of discrimination and prejudice, economic and social marginalization, often-entrenched pathologies of repression and poverty, and generations of government paternalism and colonization, Indigenous peoples remain willing to share their culture, history, and knowledge. Remarkably, they continue to extend their hands in friendship and the spirit of reconciliation.

To a degree that is difficult to comprehend, Indigenous peoples in Canada seek real partnership and a desire to share a common pathway. If and when non-Indigenous peoples recognize this openness and willingness to share, the mutual journey toward real reconciliation will be much easier and might actually start to produce the desired outcomes.

Ken S. Coates is a Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

by Sylvain Charlebois
Troy Media

The cost of living has understandably been one of the current federal election’s top issues. Most major parties have included proposed measures to help Canadians, especially those with less means.

However, recent data suggest consumers are taking matters into their own hands to save a few bucks.

Meat represents a big portion of anyone’s food budget, roughly 20 per cent on average. If saving money at the grocery store is a priority for someone, cutting meat is an easy target.

Recent retail sales data suggest that Canadian consumers are already hedging against food inflation at the grocery store. According to some sources, meat sales have dropped significantly this year, especially in the last 12 weeks. And barbecue season is normally the most lucrative period of the year for the meat trifecta of beef, chicken and pork.

Across the nation, beef sales in volume at grocery stores have dropped by more than six per cent since May. Even in Alberta, cattle country, beef sales have dropped by more than six per cent.

It’s even worse for chicken and pork. Sales in volume for chicken dropped by more than 12 per cent and pork by 17 per cent. In Ontario alone, pork sales dropped 20 per cent this summer.

Even if consumers were going out more this summer compared to the spring, these meat consumption drops are quite significant – many Canadians are clearly spending less time at the meat counter.

Meanwhile, retail beef prices are up almost 10 per cent on average since January, according to Statistics Canada, and pork and chicken are also more expensive, despite sluggish sales.

That’s why the supply-and-demand theory many mention when prices go up rarely makes sense at the grocery store. It’s more complicated than that. For grocers, the art of fixing prices in food retail is a blend of protecting margins and setting prices based on what grocers believe the market can bear.

So despite lower retail sales, don’t expect prices to drop any time soon. Higher grain prices, lower inventories and supply chain disruptions are making meat an increasingly expensive choice.

Historically, beef and pork are highly price-elastic, while poultry is relatively inelastic. Consumers tend to react to higher beef and pork prices and tend to settle for chicken. Chicken is like the tide in meat counter economics. If chicken goes up in price, so will pork and beef because of their demand elasticity.

And since grocers know it’s much harder to increase prices when offering discounts for an extended period, playing with prices at the meat counter isn’t common.

This summer, all three components of the meat trifecta were severally affected by how consumers reacted to higher meat prices. In most stores, even if deals offering some products at 25 to 50 per cent off can be found, the perception that a trip to the meat counter will cost you dearly is ingrained in many consumers’ minds. Many have been spooked and that’s never good business, especially for meat.

In 2014, beef prices startled consumers with a 25 per cent hike in just one month. Many consumers boycotted the meat counter – for a while. Sales came back while prices barely dropped.

But 2014 was a different protein market. It was before the Beyond Meat craze. Most Canadians were heavily committed to animal proteins, mainly because they weren’t aware of other options.

Today, most Canadians remain committed to eating animal proteins, but they are game to venture beyond meat and settle for other more affordable protein sources.

The hard reality is that eating meat is a luxury in most countries and it’s slowly becoming one in Canada. That’s a harsh lesson in meat economics for us all.

An average family of four can spend $2,600 to $3,000 on meat products in a year. So reducing a meat budget can make a difference.

Sales of meat alternatives have been about four per cent higher this summer compared to the spring. Canadians won’t give up meat anytime soon but other options are now within their grasp.

Canadians are reportedly more food literate than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of us know more recipes and are willing to get more creative in the kitchen. And that may empower many to consider other protein ingredients.

If meat is pricing itself out of the market, so be it. Canadians can handle it, at least more so than they used to.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.

By Sylvain Charlebois

Dalhousie University

and Stuart Smyth

University of Saskatchewan

Canadians had until July 20 to comment on the federal government’s proposal to increase the amount of glyphosate herbicide residue allowed on legumes. Now, due to some deserved public pressure, Health Canada extended the deadline to Sept. 3.

The debate on glyphosate in Canada and around the world is populist, chaotic, political and simply unsettling. Many groups are regrettably weaponizing research to make a point, either to support the use of the well-known chemical, also known as Roundup, or to declare it cancer-causing and poisonous.

Some are treating science like a buffet, carefully selecting research to accommodate a certain narrative. It’s messy and a disservice to the public.

At the core, it’s a battle between organic and modern family farming, or even rural against urban views. Consumers have every right to be concerned about the safety of the food they buy, but most of the information they’re exposed to is incredibly skewed by politics from many sides.

The inconvenient truth about glyphosate is that it’s not poison – unless used irresponsibly, of course. Most farmers adhere to responsible and sustainable practices based on precision agriculture, where overuse is both costly and wasteful.

Health Canada didn’t help the debate with its less-than-mediocre risk communication strategy. Knowing it was dealing with one of the most controversial issues in agriculture, it has shown some hesitancy in disclosing all the information it had, forcing media to dig deeper. The federal department should be as transparent as possible, especially when dealing with the most widely used, and important, chemical in Canadian agriculture.

Misrepresentation of glyphosate’s toxicity misleads the public, the scientific community and regulators. With glyphosate, detection doesn’t equal toxicity.

Health Canada’s intent is to harmonize standards across North America. For the sake of more transparency, the federal agency should be clear about why the evaluation is being done and who’s asking for it, or whether it’s part of Canada’s commitment to complying with international trade and regulation agreements.

It should also explain what the risks are. By known standards, a person would need to eat at least 32 bowls of Cheerios every day for more than a year to even approach the limit suggested by Health Canada. Or a person would need to eat over 600 kg of lentils over a few months.

These thresholds are at least 100 times less than levels that could impact someone’s health. Many studies suggesting glyphosate to be harmful often set unreasonable standards based on questionable data.

Many environmentalists and organic farming groups are behind a lot of the reports condemning the use of glyphosate. For years, these groups went to war against genetically modified organisms (GMOs), only to realize most consumers weren’t buying the ‘frankenfoods’ fear campaign.

These groups are after the chemicals supporting genetic engineering in agriculture but expecting modern agriculture to be chemical-free is simply unrealistic. Over 140 chemical compounds are approved for use in the production of organic crops in Canada, and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) data reveals that chemical residues are present on nearly half of organic produce.

We’ve come a long way since the dust bowl era on the Prairies. We’ve learned how tillage can be damaging and how soil science can serve agriculture more meaningfully, with the support of resourceful biotechnologies. Tillage has long been used to control weeds in crop/food production. The use of glyphosate has removed 99 per cent of tillage area in Saskatchewan, reducing soil erosion and increasing moisture conservation.

Some consensus is building on the safety of glyphosate. Seventeen regulatory agencies and thousands of studies have evaluated glyphosate’s human health and environmental impacts, including one major report from the European Union, released in June.

Overlooked by most major media outlets in Canada, the European report has deemed glyphosate not cancer-causing. That’s right, not carcinogenic.

The sample design and methodologies of past studies suggesting glyphosate may cause cancer were heavily criticized after they were released.

We should certainly have an ongoing debate about the use of chemicals in agriculture. And working to fully understand inherent risks and verified benefits to our health and the environment is critical.

But some organizations and academics with clear conflicts of interest continue to disregard the prevalence of evidence supporting current farming practices. And that’s a disservice to honest public discourse on the issue.Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. Dr. Stuart Smyth is Agri-Food Innovation and Sustainability Enhancement Chair at the University of Saskatchewan.

by Sylvain Charlebois
Troy Media

The Tokyo Olympic Games are finally upon us. Most of the attention will be given to the athletes, the sports, the empty stands and, of course, COVID-19. But every Olympics brings the gigantic task of feeding an entire village of high-performing humans from all over the world.

In Tokyo, that means organizers need to feed 48,000 people every day amid a global pandemic.

Unlike previous Olympics, athletes aren’t allowed to go to restaurants outside the village, so the food offering needs to be tasty yet comprehensive and appropriate for all diets. Organizers are offering over 700 menu options, which they say is a record.

From fresh roti from a clay oven to conchiglie, you can get almost anything in the village. No matter where you’re from, you should be able to find what you need.

Diets will be separated into three main groups: Western, Japanese and Asian. The latter will include Vietnamese, Indian and Chinese foods.

As with every aspect of the pandemic-postponed Olympics, the virus will cast a long shadow on how people are fed. Most meals served during the Olympics will be informal dishes – no formal dining. The main two-storey cafeteria has 3,000 seats, supported by 2,000 staff at peak hours.

Big delegations like the United States, Russia and China will have their own facilities. Food is available 24 hours a day in the village and all of it’s free.

Seating has been reduced and athletes must keep mealtimes as short as possible. Since athletes must leave the village within 48 hours of the end of their event, food facilities will likely get less busy as the games move on.

People in the village will have access to staples such as ramen and udon noodles, accompanied by miso, a well-known fermented soybean paste central to Japanese cuisine. Grilled wagyu beef, okonomiyaki, sashimi and oden will also be available. And of course, the highly coveted bento box will be available, along with zaru soba, sukiyaki and takoyaki. All these traditional Japanese dishes are loved by many around the world.

However, due to stringent food safety rules, sushi, of all things, won’t be available. Only canned tuna and cooked shrimp. This will likely come as a disappointment as sushi is arguably the most well-known Japanese dish for westerners.

One can only assume that the last thing Olympic organizers want during a pandemic is a foodborne illness outbreak, so health-care services remain on alert for a potential COVID-19 wave.

As with anything food-related these days, meals will accommodate just about every religious and dietary restriction. Tokyo will be the first Games where an entire gluten-free section is offered.

Beyond the village lies the incredible complexities of making a food supply chain work to feed the Olympic athletes. Supply-chain experts know that 30 per cent of costs and more than 70 per cent of problems in transportation occur in the last mile, from warehouses to the Olympic village.

And this is Tokyo, one of the most populous cities in the world, where close to 38 million live. Travelling anywhere in the region can take hours. Yet fresh, safe food has to be delivered daily to the village.

To add to the difficulty, there’s also an extra layer of surveillance and quality assurance. With the sketchy history of performance-enhancing drug use by some delegations, the temptation to taint food is always there. Athletes are always one burrito away from losing a medal. So the entire food supply chain needs to be highly secure.

As if COVID-19 wasn’t enough for organizers, Tokyo is expected to experience 30C-plus weather for most of the Olympics. Keeping everyone cool will be a challenge. Nations will be allowed to bring recovery drinks and snack packs. So some aspects of food supply will come from the delegations themselves.

Tokyo will be a very different Olympics, and the food facet will be no exception. At least organizers won’t need to figure out how to feed thousands of fans at events, since they won’t be there.

Let’s hope COVID-19 doesn’t ruin the Games, one way or another.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.