Unlocking Canada’s food leadership: the time to move is now

Canada is on the cusp of becoming a global leader in food production and value-added agriculture. The world is shifting—food-import dependency is rising, supply-chain resilience has become a national priority, and governments everywhere are competing to secure domestic manufacturing capacity. Few countries are better positioned than Canada. Yet our potential remains largely untapped.

For Protein Industries Canada, the last few weeks have underscored both the urgency and the opportunity. We have spent significant time in Ottawa meeting with elected leaders and senior officials—building awareness of the sector’s scale, our members’ capabilities, and the role value-added agriculture can play in supporting the government’s goals: stronger supply chains, growth in advanced manufacturing, and resilient economic expansion.

We’ve also taken this message beyond the Hill. At the Canadian Science Policy Centre annual event, we highlighted why food security must be treated as part of national security. At Grow Canada, we moderated discussions on how to unlock the power of Canada’s agriculture and food ecosystem. And through a recent op-ed in The Globe and Mail from our board member Dave Dzisiak and former board chair Frank Hart, there was a clear point: Canada is a food and agriculture superpower—we just need to start acting like it.

Across every conversation, panel, and meeting, the message was clear:

• We must keep telling our story. Awareness of the economic potential of Canada’s food sector is still low. We all need to be louder and more aligned about what’s possible.
• Food production and value-added agriculture must be a strategic national priority. This is a scalable, stable, and resilient sector that can help Canada meet its productivity and manufacturing ambitions, while also increasing our own domestic food supply chains. More so, we are an industry that is ready and that can have real impact in relatively short time-frames.
• The world needs what Canada can produce. As demand rises, we can be the preferred supplier of commodities, high-value ingredients and finished products.
• The time is now. We need to move with urgency, and we must be bold. There is no room for modesty here: now is the time for Canada to lead.

The path forward is clear: unlock the full potential of our sector, mobilize both industry and government, and move quickly. If Canada takes this moment seriously, we won’t just participate in the future of food—we will lead it.