Sylvain Charlebois: Food Tax Reform Keeps Colliding With Governments’ Need for Revenue

A customer shops at a grocery store in Ottawa on April 2, 2025. The Canadian Press/Justin Tang

Commentary

Quebec is poised to become the second province in Canada in recent weeks to roll back provincial sales taxes on food-related items, reinforcing a broader truth governments increasingly struggle to defend: taxing food has always been a flawed way to shape consumer behaviour.