Shaw: B.C. risks losing food security race as Ontario, Alberta pull ahead

Food security in B.C.

Photo: GVBOT/Matt Borck/One Group Agency

Greater Vancouver Board of Trade president Bridgitte Anderson says B.C. risks losing food security funding and agri-processing investment to faster-moving provinces such as Ontario and Alberta.

B.C. risks falling behind provinces like Ontario on food security and agri-food investment if it doesn’t move quickly to boost agricultural production, business leaders warn.

Prime Minister Mark Carney made food security a cornerstone of his recent affordability announcement, not just by expanding the GST credit but with measures to boost domestic food production such as allowing producers to fully write off greenhouses.

Ottawa also announced a new National Food Security Strategy, and $150 million towards a Food Security Fund.

The shift is exposing how unprepared B.C. is to seize those federal dollars, said Bridgitte Anderson, president of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

“This is an enormous opportunity for British Columbians,” Anderson said in an interview.

“The federal government has made it clear that we need to increase local food processing for a number of reasons. Food inflation is expected to rise again this year after several years of increases. We’re looking at structural weaknesses when it comes to local food processing.”

The emphasis on domestic agricultural production has ramped up since U.S. President Donald Trump began threatening tariffs last year.

Other provinces have moved faster and more deliberately.

Ontario has attracted around $1.5 billion in food processing investment since 2024 for everything from soy milk powder, to xanthan gum to ice cream.

Alberta has pulled in more than $500 million in similar investments, largely due to its Agri-Processing Investment Tax Credit, which provides a 12 per cent non-refundable tax credit for companies investing over $10 million into new or expanded agri-processing facilities.

“Alberta is another jurisdiction we’ve lost investment to,” said Anderson. “When you think about our local food processors, they have to truck their products to another jurisdiction to have them processed, and then bring them back. That doesn’t make any sense from an environmental perspective, from a transportation perspective or a cost perspective.”

In other words, provinces that hesitate risk watching capital and jobs move elsewhere.

“We have to be keeping step with other jurisdictions like Alberta and Ontario,” Anderson said. “The federal government has laid it all out there. B.C. just has to meet the moment.”

At the centre of the debate in B.C. is the province’s long-standing “50-50 rule,” a regulation that business groups say is increasingly at odds with the push for domestic food processing. It limits food production facilities within the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) to using at least 50 per cent of their source materials from the farm in which their facility is located.

Critics say it unnecessarily hamstrings farmers—preventing, say, a blueberry farmer from making mixed berry jam or a lettuce farmer from making mixed salad greens. Advocates say it protects ALR land from development, and preserves it for actual farming.

Premier David Eby has publicly suggested removing or changing it. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham has been more cautious, warning scrapping the rule outright could open the door to inappropriate development on farmland.

But Popham said she’s been working on a compromise that recognizes B.C.’s growing need to be food secure, grow the economy and expand production.

“It’s a complicated issue,” said Popham. “I think we’re going to have to change something.

“Do we want more processing? Absolutely. We’re going to try to land on something soon.”

Food production facilities make the most sense on low-quality agricultural soil, with access to water and near transportation hubs for workers, said Popham.

‘We’re not going to open up the entire ALR and say it’s an absolute free-for-all to build massive complexes on farmland,” she said.

“There will be a decision made that takes into account the value of farmland and food processing.”

She said there are investments in the sector coming in the next six months that will be positive.

On Ottawa’s greenhouse incentive, Popham said that could help a capital-intensive sector of B.C.’s economy, which is moving towards a 12-months-a-year growing cycle.

Expanding the greenhouse sector is part of the premier’s Look West economic plan released last year, which sets a 25 per cent goal for growing agriculture and food services over the next 10 years.

“I do know there are greenhouses going up right now,” Popham said. “I made some calls to the greenhouse industry and people haven’t quite figured out how [the tax incentive] works, but seem really excited about it.

“So anybody expanding right now, it’s going to be very positive.”

Still, the business community wants a more aggressive approach.

“The government has to make a change that will clearly demonstrate to investors that we are open for business,” Anderson said about boosting food production and removing the 50-50 rule.

“There is a race within Canada. I talk to my colleagues from other chambers of commerce and boards of trade all the time, and there is a race across Canada for each province to try and get these federal dollars.”

So far, it’s a race that B.C. appears to be losing.

Rob Shaw has spent more than 18 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for BIV. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.