By: Maya Papaya
On Friday, Burnaby witnessed its 67th protest concerning pizza purist legislation. Bill C-XX, a provincial law restricting the allowed composition of pizza configurations to cheese and meat (Section X,xx: Only animal products and byproducts may be used to garnish, decorate, or enhance a pizza), has been met with defiance by controversial ideological groups.
Pizzerias affiliated with Big Pizza have released almost identical statements that diverse toppings no longer align with their mission statement. In the wake of this policy, all pizza permitted since late 2025 has been plain or pepperoni. Big Pizza has not responded for comment.
“It’s absurd,” Philomena Piña told The Peak at her pineapple mega-farm. “My family has been permitted to garnish, decorate, and enhance pizza for generations. We elevate pizza from a simple food to something artisan.” The young pineapple advocate sneered while reciting a clause from the legislation written on a napkin from a pizzeria. “If I am no longer permitted on pizza, it’s perspicuous that any kind of subversion is not respected in this society. How can we call that progress?”
Piña comes from a prominent family. Her estate is responsible for pushing pineapple-themed products into boutique grocery stores, but Piña herself has been implicated in several pizza scandals before. In 2020, she passionately promoted Swedish banana pizza from a burner TikTok account to distract from anti-pineapple groups. Now, in 2026, banana pizza has faded into irrelevance, and pineapple remains contentious in the social-culinary scene.
The pepperoni and pineapple feud has been prominent in the press. Pepperoni gang members have been flaunting their recent popularity: just last Super Bowl, Porsche produced a commercial where their all-new 2026 Panamera had been modelled out of a six-foot-long hotdog. “Why are hotdogs associated with luxury? I’m a tropical fruit, dammit! It takes years to grow a pineapple from a seed, and the soil acidity needs to be just right. To insinuate that pizza is above me is insulting!” Piña screamed at our correspondent. When The Peak asked why she is so adamant about being included in the layperson’s meal if she is so posh, Piña shot our correspondent a peevish look. “I should be allowed to work in the pizza sector if I choose, the same way Eric Blair renamed himself George Orwell and lived among the indigent in 1920s Paris. But I really do believe I am doing pizza a service as a whole, generously improving the flavour palette.”
Seeing Metrotown ablaze with protesters conceals the heart of the issue. In the face of spectacle, the public has been led to believe one must choose pepperoni or pineapple. “When my grandfather came to Canada, he fell in love with a pineapple,” a pepperoni gang member (anonymous for privacy) tells me. “I was alienated by people that didn’t understand me. I think people are apprehensive about new ideas, but the truth is there is perfect harmony found when sweet, tangy fruit and salty meat are put together.”
