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Canada needs to become more secure by becoming more self-sufficient. In a new series — Strong & Free: Shockproofing Canada — the Post examines how a country made wealthy by globalization and trade can also protect itself against pandemics and other unknown future shocks to ensure some of our immense resources and economic power are reserved for our own security.

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The thing about a good, sturdy supply chain is that nobody pays much attention when it’s working. “The supply chain is boring, until things go off the rails,” as one food economist put it this week.

And things have been off the rails for a while now. The empty grocery store shelf has become a symbol of all the fear and frustration caused by a society tipped upside down by a global pandemic, with people baking rather than celebrating the start of barbecue season, hoarding toilet paper and buying even dusty canned food off shelves.

But for the people who pay close attention to the national food supply chain, empty shelves aren’t that big or scary a problem. The more complicated problems are expected in the near future, as the system encounters bottlenecks in production caused by potential labour shortages at farms or virus outbreaks at processing plants.