Christine Stich, 2026-01-21

I recently read an article on how public grocery stores could work in Canada (How public grocery stores could work in Canada - CCPA).

It’s a compelling proposal, not because it is radical, but because it is pragmatic. It asks a simple question: What if access to food were treated as a public good rather than a profit opportunity?

That question invites a broader reflection. In Canada, both the grocery market and the housing market operate according to the same underlying logic. They are treated primarily as economic systems, increasingly disconnected from the lived realities of the people who depend on them. Because access to both food and housing is governed largely by market forces, it is determined by purchasing power rather than need. In that context, concepts like housing as a human right become symbolic rather than operational.

The consequences of this approach are increasingly visible. Grocery prices continue to rise, squeezing household budgets across the income spectrum. For families already struggling to make ends meet, food is often the first expense to be compromised, not because it matters less, but because it is one of the few flexible costs. People skip meals. They buy cheaper less nutritious food. They rely on food banks not as a temporary support, but as a long-term coping strategy.

For households already spending an unsustainable share of their income on rent, rising food prices don’t simply mean inconvenience. They mean instability, worsening health outcomes, and a heightened risk of eviction. Food insecurity and housing insecurity are not separate problems; they compound one another, reinforcing cycles of poverty and precarity.

Public policy plays a central role in shaping these outcomes. It does more than allocate money: it reflects how a society understands responsibility, dignity, and rights. When governments invest heavily in emergency responses but underinvest in prevention, they normalize crisis. When access to basic needs is governed almost exclusively by markets, exclusion becomes routine rather than exceptional.

An alternative approach is possible. Public policy can affirm that housing is not merely a commodity, that food is not just another consumer good, and that preventing poverty and homelessness is both more humane and more effective than responding after harm has already occurred. Because markets are not designed to protect access when profit conflicts with human need, public options exist to fill that gap, to stabilize prices, guarantee baseline access, and signal what a society considers essential.

In Canada, this logic is already widely accepted in other domains. Healthcare, education, and water are treated as public goods because access to them is considered foundational to individual and collective well-being. Food and housing are no less fundamental.

Public grocery stores. Social and non-market housing. Income supports tied to real costs of living. These are not isolated ideas. They are different answers to the same underlying question: What do we believe people are entitled to, simply by virtue of being human?