Pets now occupy the social space children once did, but our food affordability debates haven’t caught up

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For years, pet ownership in Canada has been framed as a lifestyle choice. A dog is a companion. A cat is a comfort.

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In public discourse, pets are often treated as discretionary luxuries — nice to have, but optional. That framing is now badly outdated.

Today, roughly six-in-ten Canadian households live with at least one cat or dog. There are more than 16 million cats and dogs in the country. And a growing share of those animals are not owned by young families with rising incomes, but by seniors, people living alone, and households that explicitly view pets as family........

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