Why are chicken prices skyrocketing in Canada—and where is Ottawa?

Canada’s chicken market is sending a signal that Ottawa can no longer afford to ignore: supply is not keeping pace with demand.

Chicken Farmers of Canada reported this week that production during the first four months of 2026 was 5.6% higher than during the same period last year. That sounds reassuring. But the same organization also acknowledged that underproduction remained a challenge, while wholesale prices for whole birds and legs reached record levels.

Unless Ottawa moves quickly, chicken prices could soar even higher by September—just as children return to school and families resume routines built around convenient, affordable proteins. For households already struggling with sharply higher beef prices, another increase at the chicken counter would be especially painful.

Production can rise and still fail to meet the market. That is precisely the problem.

Supply management was created to balance domestic production with Canadian demand while providing farmers with stable and predictable returns. It was never intended to ration the market, protect inefficiency or allow persistent scarcity to become normal.

Chicken production is established in eight-week allocation periods. The system forecasts demand, determines how much chicken farmers may produce and protects the domestic market through import controls. When the forecast is reasonably accurate and farmers fill their allocations, the model can work well.

But a production allocation is only a ceiling. It is not a guarantee that every kilogram will reach the market. Hatching-egg and chick shortages, avian influenza, mortality, extreme heat, labour constraints and processing capacity can all prevent farmers from filling their quotas. Chicken Farmers of Canada has itself attributed much of the recent underproduction to chick-supply and quality problems associated with avian influenza.

The system’s weakness becomes obvious when something goes wrong. Production cannot be increased instantly, and imports do not enter automatically to fill the gap. The result is a protected market with too little flexibility precisely when consumers need it most.

The situation also creates a troubling incentive at the border. Spent fowl—the meat from mature laying hens—is treated differently under Canada’s import system from broiler chicken raised for meat. Misclassifying broiler meat as spent fowl can allow an importer to avoid the tariff-rate quota and the extremely high duties that can apply outside it.

The Canada Border Services Agency recently reported approximately $196 million in total assessed revenue arising from five erroneous cases among 12 completed spent-fowl reviews. This amount should not be described simply as fines, and an erroneous declaration is not automatically proof of criminal fraud. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the assessments tells us that the financial incentive created by the tariff gap is enormous.

 Ottawa should respond with an immediate but measured supply intervention.

The federal government should authorize supplemental imports of one million kilograms of chicken per week for eight weeks. That would represent roughly 3.5% of Canada’s weekly production—enough to improve availability and put downward pressure on wholesale prices without overwhelming domestic producers.

The permits should be released weekly, not as one large shipment, and the program should be reviewed after four weeks. If inventories recover and wholesale prices normalize, the amount could be reduced or the program ended. If the shortage persists, the permits could be maintained temporarily.

This authority already exists. Subsection 8.3(3) of the Export and Import Permits Act allows the minister responsible for the legislation—currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs—to issue supplemental import permits beyond the normal access quantity. The agriculture minister can support the intervention, but Global Affairs Canada administers the permits. 

This would not require Canada to surrender permanent market access during trade negotiations with the United States. It would be a temporary domestic response to a documented Canadian supply problem. In fact, acting independently would allow Canada to tell Washington that it is serving its consumers without trading away permanent concessions.

At the same time, Chicken Farmers of Canada should increase domestic allocations for upcoming production periods, provided hatcheries, farms and processors can actually deliver the additional volume. Increasing quota on paper accomplishes little if the birds, barns or processing capacity are unavailable.

The longer-term solution is an automatic safety valve. Supplemental imports should be triggered when actual production repeatedly falls below allocation, inventories decline below a predetermined level and Canadian wholesale prices remain materially above the landed price of equivalent foreign chicken.

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Those indicators should be published for every allocation period. Canadians should be able to see forecast demand, authorized production, actual production, underproduction, inventories, imports and wholesale prices. A system protected by public policy owes the public that degree of transparency.

Import enforcement also needs reform. High-risk importers should disclose their beneficial owners, provide adequate financial security and maintain verifiable supplier and traceability records. A corporation should not be able to incur a massive customs assessment, dissolve and leave taxpayers with an uncollectable bill.

Canada does not need to abolish supply management overnight. It needs to make the system live up to its original purpose. Stable farm returns matter, but so do sufficient supply, reasonable prices and public confidence.

The principle should be straightforward: Canadian production first, temporary imports when Canadian supply fails, and automatic intervention before scarcity becomes a crisis.