Back-to-school shopping is an annual ritual that feels both urgent and absurd. Parents rush to buy all the things, knowing full well some of them will come home in June barely touched. And still, the pressure is on to get it right. To send your kid off prepared. To check every box.

While digging through our stash of supplies from school years past, I could hear one of my kids’ favourite TikTok memes echoing in my head: “For what purpose?” The question is directed to me when I remind them of their household or self-care duties, but this time, it felt like a fair inquiry.

As an American expat raising two bilingual children in a French school system, I was overwhelmed the first time I reviewed the grade-specific, full-page supply lists laid out in 10-point type, sprinkled with unfamiliar terms. (Pochette de chemise, I learned, is not a fancy shirt with pockets). Didn’t schools provide this stuff in the past? When did families become the fallback?

What seems like a simple request for school supplies is a crash course in microeconomics, where access, supply, demand and pricing shape what families take home and what gets left on shelves.

In Quebec, school funding is handled at the provincial level, and taxes paid by........

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