Trudeau warns of 'difficult time,' food shortages due to COVID-19

Toronto: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is warning of impeding tough times, including food shortages, placing blame on the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's special military operation in Ukraine.

"We've seen... disruptions of supply chains around the world, which is resulting in higher prices for consumers and democracies, like ours, and resulting in significant shortages and projected shortages of food, of energy in places around the world. This is going to be a difficult time because of the war, because of the recovery from the pandemic," Trudeau told reporters in Vancouver on Thursday.

Earlier this month, Canada's state statistics agency announced that the country's economy fell well short of anticipated growth rates and not enough to enough to overturn the coronavirus pandemic-induced contraction in 2020.

Furthermore, the country remains gripped by an inflationary crisis, with the inflation rate rising to 5.7 percent in February, marking the highest increase since August of 1991.

The prime minister vowed to "have peoples' backs" and said that Canadians would "be there" for one another but stopped short of announcing any concrete measures to address the situation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously dismissed similar accusations from US President Joe Biden, saying that Russia's campaign to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine has nothing to do with rising soaring prices in the United States.