Melanie Paradis: This year, I'm grateful for baby formula ... but we need much more

We are dumping milk to keep prices high, while baby-saving formula becomes one of the most-stolen items by desperate mothers who can't afford the cost.

Every year at Christmas time, The Line runs a series of articles about things we should be thankful for — just like we’re thankful for you. Happy holidays from your friends at The Line.

By: Melanie Paradis

Four months ago, I had my second baby. I got sick very early postpartum, and my breastmilk supply never recovered. For me, the availability of baby formula has been an absolute necessity for which I am very grateful.

Every day, Canadian mothers are having to make this decision for deeply personal reasons. Whether it was medical complications or the relentless demands of work on women without sufficient maternity leave coverage, most moms end up using formula to feed their babies in part or in full at some point. Yet, as essential as it is, formula is incredibly expensive and inconsistently available.

Reliable access to infant formula became a crisis in 2022 and 2023 when a massive, months-long formula shortage began after just one factory in the U.S. had to shut down due to contamination. That one U.S. factory produced 60 per cent of Canada’s infant formula supply. That’s how vulnerable our supply chain is. Not a single drop of infant formula consumed by Canadian babies is manufactured here, so we are entirely at the mercy of imports.

Think about that. Canada, a G7 nation, cannot produce the most essential product for infant nutrition. If a country’s most basic responsibility is to protect its citizens, what does it say about Canada that we are entirely at the mercy of foreign markets to feed our infants?

The situation gets even more absurd when you realize the sheer scale of the formula market. Some have argued that the economics of manufacturing infant formula are not attractive due to declining birth rates. You know what would help increase birth rates? A reliable supply of affordable infant formula!

Also, let’s not pretend there isn’t already demand. Moms who formula feed are spending hundreds of dollars a month. It ain’t cheap! I’m buying the equivalent of a designer handbag every two months in formula. This is a multi-billion-dollar industry. North America’s infant formula market was valued at over $20 billion in 2022, and Canada imports millions of kilograms of formula annually. Yet no one has stepped up to establish a domestic supply, while Canadian parents shoulder the cost and the risk.

Meanwhile, our governments are bending over backwards to attract manufacturers of all sorts to set up shop here in Canada. But where’s the ribbon-cutting for the first-ever domestic infant formula production facility? Where’s the breathless announcement speech and giant cheque?

The dissonance is maddening.

Before I continue, I should add here that there is one manufacturer of infant formula in Canada. I drive by Canada Royal Milk every time I go to Costco in Kingston, Ontario. In the past few weeks, this Chinese-owned company got their long-awaited approval to sell the infant formula they manufacture to Canadians under the brand Niuriss, although the bulk of their products will be exported to feed Chinese babies. Somehow, in a country where we don’t let Chinese companies dig minerals out of our ground due to national security concerns, we are now letting them manufacture and sell infant formula.

Infant formula is now among the most-stolen products in North America. That alone should be a wake-up call. To buy formula, I have to go to the customer service desk at my grocer, where they also sell lotto tickets and cigarettes, because there was so much theft, they had no choice but to secure the product behind the counter. At Walmart, there are more security cameras in the formula aisle than any other section of the store.

The affordability crisis means families are struggling to put food in their babies’ bellies, and it is making them desperate. So, I have to wonder, why are our governments making historic investments into other forms of manufacturing but not this? And it occurred to me — there is no lobby group for parents with hungry infants. We’re too damn busy.

But there is one enormously powerful lobby group in this space.

Enter supply-managed dairy. In this system, dairy farmers are paid to limit production in order to control prices, a policy that has led to the dumping of millions of litres of surplus milk every year. Yeah, moms and dads are spending hundreds of dollars a month to formula-feed their babies, and infant formula tops the list of stolen goods in retail, but Canada’s dairy industry is literally pouring milk down the drain.

Why isn’t that surplus milk being redirected to produce infant formula? The answer lies in a bureaucratic labyrinth that prizes economic theory over practical solutions and claims that converting surplus milk into formula isn’t cost-effective or necessary.

Since we’re on the topic of cows: I call bullshit.

Milk is the primary ingredient in many types of infant formula. Does the infrastructure to process and fortify it not exist in Canada? Then build it! Instead of finding creative ways to utilize oversupply, the system opts for outright and deliberate waste.

This is an insult to Canadian families. Milk dumping has become an open secret, one we tolerate because the system has convinced us it’s necessary. But it’s not. That wasted milk could be the foundation of a robust, domestic infant formula industry — one that provides security for parents and reduces Canada’s dependence on imports.

The situation also exposes how totally disjointed our national priorities are. We have a government that champions food security on paper while standing by as perfectly good milk is dumped and families spend small fortunes importing formula from abroad. Building one of these facilities isn’t cheap, but it’s not exactly expensive, either — news reports about the facility near me pegged the total cost in the range of a few hundred million, all in.

And yet here we are. If this isn’t a failure of leadership and imagination, what is?

Redirecting that milk to produce infant formula would not only reduce waste but also build resilience in our food supply chain. Canada clearly needs to invest in Canadian-owned, Canadian-made formula production and redirect oversupply from the dairy industry. Not tomorrow. Not when another trade disruption leaves us scrambling. Now. This isn’t just about supply chains, it’s about sovereignty, security, affordability, and respect for families.

I am grateful for infant formula. It keeps my four-month-old fed because my body cannot. But I can’t rely on our country to maintain formula supply, and that is terrifying. In 2025, let’s fix that.

Melanie Paradis is the president of Texture Communications and a veteran Conservative campaigner.

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