Madam Speaker, I am incredibly proud today to be leading the debate on the NDP opposition day motion. We propose measures to crack down on corporate greed and to lower prices for struggling Canadian families. Canadians need help. Canadians need relief from high food prices. Canadians need to see that the people they elect to the House of Commons are committed to taking action against the corporations that have enjoyed record profits at their expense.
There have been 40 years of successive Conservative and Liberal governments that have pushed economic policy to widen the gap between rich and poor to a chasm. Along the way, we have seen support from both parties for tax cuts for wealthy corporations, for deregulation and for weak competition laws. It is no accident that we have arrived at this moment today because the Conservatives and the Liberals both paved that road to make it easy to get to.
We need a political party that is prepared to swing the pendulum back in favour of the working class and back in favour of those who are tired of seeing their hard-earned money gouged by corporations that are rolling in record profits and paying their CEOs ridiculous wages and bonuses. That brings me to today's motion, which I was very proud to sponsor and which was seconded by my colleague, the member for . I will read it out for the benefit of Canadians who are watching. It states:
That, given that the cost of food continues to increase while grocery giants such as Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys make record profits, the House call on the government to:
(a) force big grocery chains and suppliers to lower the prices of essential foods or else face a price cap or other measures;
(b) stop delaying long-needed reforms to the Nutrition North program; and
(c) stop Liberal and Conservative corporate handouts to big grocers.
It is time for action. As I said, Canadians need relief. They are struggling, and we need only to look at the statistics to see that laid out in stark relief. Over the last three years, the cost of food has increased by over 20%. The use of food banks is at a 35-year high, and it is reported that one in five Canadians is skipping meals just to get by with their monthly budgets. In 2024, this year, the average family of four is expected to spend an additional $700 on food, again continuing the trend that we have seen over the last couple of years.
All this while the grocery sector continues to rake it in. Last year alone, it raked in $6 billion in profit. Loblaws has almost doubled its profit margin in the past five years, and Metro has the biggest profit margin of any grocery company. Canadians know the problem is corporate greed. They know it in their hearts. One party in the House is standing here not only to illuminate that greed, but also to take action on it.
We can see it on the streets. People are taking measures into their own hands by boycotting Loblaws and other grocery stores because, again, we have a 40-year track record of both the Liberals and the Conservatives failing to protect Canadian consumers from price gouging or holding these massive corporations accountable. Many corporate sectors have used the disruptions over the last four years, and the consumer desperation associated with it, to increase their prices well beyond what many would consider reasonable and well beyond what is required to cover their own input costs.
Despite months of promises, the Liberal government has not taken bold action to bring down the food prices that are hurting Canadian families. Much more is expected. We have a grocery task force that has not completed any tasks and that is not much of a force. The Liberals have committed to stabilizing food prices. That means very little to a Canadian family struggling with both the quality of the food and the quantity of the food they are putting on the table. They are not looking for stabilization; they are looking for prices to come down, and it has not happened. As I said, families are expected to pay more this year. Asking corporations nicely has not worked.
We know, from an Order Paper question I submitted, that the Liberals gave $25.5 million to Loblaws and to Costco between 2019 and 2023, while they were making massive profits. The last thing this sector needs is more corporate welfare from the Liberals, and from the Conservatives who set the table before them.
We solve this by asking the government to force the big grocery chains and the suppliers to lower the prices of essential foods or to put in measures to make them do it. We have been leading on this issue from the beginning. We had a unanimous vote in the House of Commons, which I sponsored. We had two unanimous votes at the House of Commons agriculture committee to study this issue to bring political and public pressure to bear. I was the one who moved a motion to summon the grocery CEOs before committee to make them answer, on the public record, for their abysmal track record on the way they have treated their consumers. We are the ones who have been consistently, over the last two years, calling out the corporate greed that is driving this cost of living crisis.
Before we get into too much criticism, I want to point out that there are well-trodden examples around the world. I want to single out France, Greece and South Korea, which have each taken steps within their respective jurisdictions to lower prices on essential food items. Price control measures are not a new thing. We see that our provincial governments have done it with rent increases. They have utility boards that monitor and regulate the cost increases associated with energy. It is not a new concept, and it is something that has to be used in a time of crisis.
France secured a deal with major companies to lower the price of groceries for 5,000 products, and the French government can hold those companies accountable to the public if they do not comply.
In Greece, the government announced gross profit caps for key consumer goods and services in the food and the health sectors. It has a policy that stipulates the gross profit per unit cannot exceed that of the profits made before December 31, 2021.
In South Korea, the president established a department-level task force to monitor and to implement food price control measures in key industries, especially when looking at food items such as milk, coffee, noodles and bread.
On the part of our motion dealing with nutrition north, I really want to recognize my friend and colleague, the member for . She has been doing an outstanding job on behalf of her constituents and has been calling out the companies that operate up there for taking that subsidy and using it to pad their bottom line, rather than serving the people in the north who need to have access to affordable food. That is why we have this as a key part of our motion.
In conclusion, I want to say that it is not just the grocery sector, even though today's motion has that as its focus. If we look at many of the top corporate sectors, especially their earnings compared to 2019, we will see massive increases, both in their net profits and in their margins. In 2023, the grocery sector made $6 billion in profits. Some of those companies have employees who cannot even afford to shop where they work. Imagine that; a grocery company employee who has to use a food bank because their own employer is not paying them enough to get by on a full-time wage. That is shameful. There are 95% of Canadians who think that food prices are too high and 97% who do not think that food prices will go down in six months.
We know that grocery prices are increasing at their fastest rate in more than 40 years. We know that corporations are using costs as an excuse to increase their prices even higher, which has resulted in record profits. We need limited price controls to break this cycle. When there is a power imbalance in society, the elected government of the people is the great equalizer. Government is where we enforce fairness. It is time for the Liberal government to step up to the plate and to act in a manner that Canadians expect.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is clearly opposed to this motion, so I think it is important that I read it. It states, and I quote:
That, given that the cost of food continues to increase while grocery giants such as Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys make record profits, the House call on the government to: (a) force big grocery chains and suppliers to lower the prices of essential foods or else face a price cap or other measures; (b) stop delaying long-needed reforms to the Nutrition North program; and (c) stop Liberal and Conservative corporate handouts to big grocers.
This is something that everyone should support. Members of the Bloc Québécois are opposing it, and I think that they are going to pay the price in the next election. I think they are also going to pay the price for opposing dental care, which is something that Quebeckers really appreciate, and for opposing pharmacare, which is supported by the biggest coalition in the history of Quebec. This shows that the Bloc Québécois is off the mark when it comes to things that are in the best interests of Quebeckers and everyone.
[English]
I want to take some time to talk about the disgraceful Conservative record on this because as we know, the corporate Conservatives have been involved in some of the most egregious impacts on Canadian consumers. I need to talk about the bread-fixing scandal. Prices went up, and just a few months after the Harper government was elected, all the big grocery chain CEOs got together and decided they were going to fix the price of bread, because they knew the Harper government would do absolutely nothing to stop them. Just a few months after Harper was elected, that is what they chose to do, and they were right.
Over the course of almost a decade, money was stolen from Canadian families, on average $400, with nary a peep from a single Conservative MP. Not a single one of them over the decade stood up to say that maybe price fixing is bad, that maybe consumers should not be gouged and that maybe the big grocery chains should stop ripping off Canadian consumers. Nothing happened for a decade. The Conservatives should hang their heads in shame. Every single Conservative member was simply an agent helping to facilitate the rip-off of $400 from Canadian consumers. It was $400 more than they should have paid if price fixing had not simply been allowed by the Harper government for nearly a decade.
Are the Conservatives different today under the member for ? Sadly, they are not. Corporate lobbyists have been stepping up to every fundraiser the member for Carleton holds. The Conservatives' national campaign manager is a lobbyist and their deputy leader is a lobbyist. Half of their national executive are corporate lobbyists. The corporate Conservatives are simply the worst example of how corporate CEOs can rip off the public with impunity under Conservative governments.
Of course, one would say that Liberals have not been much better, but the reality is that in the current minority Parliament, because of the strength of the member for , the member for and the entire NDP caucus, we have managed to enforce new changes in the Competition Bureau legislation that actually finally allow the Competition Bureau to take action.
Under the Harper government, the bread-fixing scandal that ripped off hundreds of dollars from each Canadian family going to the grocery store and basically being robbed by bread price fixing, which was allowed under the Harper government in the most egregious way, is now going to be a memory because of the Competition Bureau fixes that the member for , the member for and the entire NDP caucus have brought to the most recent budget implementation act.
We have taken action to ensure that Canadians are protected. That is what we do in this corner of the House. We are not corporate Conservatives. We do not simply allow the corporate lobbyists to do whatever the hell they want, such as bread price fixing like we saw under nearly a decade of the most dismal record in Canadian history with the most corrupt government in Canadian history, the Harper government, and the most financially incompetent government with ten years of deficits throughout that period.
As I recall, it was a government that was willing to give anything to banks and corporate CEOs, $116 billion in liquidity supports to Canada's big banks so they could pay bigger dividends and bigger executive bonuses.
Of course, we saw the massive handouts to oil and gas CEOs, another price-fixing scandal that has been well documented. We saw in British Columbia, just a few months ago, an unexplained 30¢ rise, because the oil and gas giants just love ripping off consumers, but nary a peep from Conservatives. As long as the corporations are benefiting, then they are happy. We saw, as well, the most egregious, infamous Harper tax haven treaties. The Parliamentary Budgetary Officer informed us that, sadly, over $30 billion a year in taxpayer money was going offshore. Over 10 years, that is $300 billion.
There is no doubt that Conservative times, Tory times, are tough, toxic times. That is illustrated most clearly by how the Conservatives allow corporate CEOs to rip off Canadians with impunity. The NDP is not going to stand for that. This is why we have brought forward this motion to ensure we stop the corporate handouts that we have seen under the Conservatives, and most recently, as my colleague from pointed out, under the Liberals, with the $25 million given to Loblaws, as if it needs it.
Under the Conservatives and Liberals, seniors and low-income people tend to pay the price, except in minority governments where the NDP holds the Liberals to account and forces things such as the GST rebate, the grocery rebate, affordable housing, dental care, pharmacare and a range of other measures that actually help Canadians. We are also saying that we need to reform nutrition north. We hope all members will support it today.
:
Madam Speaker, in keeping with today's theme, I would like to focus my remarks on our efforts to tackle food insecurity to ensure real and lasting change. The solutions for food security rests on a strong policy. That is why, from day one, we committed to a food policy for Canada, the first for our nation.
The food policy for Canada launched in 2019 after lengthy and inclusive consultations, which brought everyone to the table to talk about different aspects of the food system and to address challenges. As well as our stakeholder clients, farmers and the value chain, we reached out to Canadians from across Canada's food systems, including consumers, health and nutrition experts, food security advocates, environmental groups, fishers, indigenous peoples and the academic community.
After consultations with over 45,000 Canadians, we arrived at a collective vision for the food policy. That vision is that all people of Canada are able to access a sufficient amount of safe, nutritious and culturally diverse foods and that Canada's food system is resilient and innovative, sustains our environment and supports our economy.
Today, five years later, the Government of Canada continues to work with community-based organizations to strengthen Canada's food system, from sustainable food production and processing to strong local food infrastructure and lowering food waste. This includes our local food infrastructure fund that supports local and regional food systems sustainably. By encouraging the development of small-scale community-based food systems and the building of local processing capacity, including regional slaughter capacity, those requirements to support those producers are critical.
Over the past four years, the fund has supported over 1,000 food security projects across Canada to help food security organizations to reach more families that are struggling with high food prices. Projects include community gardens and kitchens, refrigerated trucks, storage units for donated food and greenhouses in remote and northern communities that face severe food security challenges.
Now, more than ever, we must support the work of organizations that help those who need it most. That is why earlier this year, the hon. announced a federal investment of up to nearly $10 million for over 190 projects under the local food infrastructure fund. The most recent phase is to provide rapid response funding to help improve food security in communities through investments in equipment and infrastructure needs. Projects are targeted and immediate.
This funding will help communities, food banks and organizations across Canada invest in things like new equipment and infrastructure to get food where it is needed most. For example, this funding is helping a first nations community in Alberta with technology to grow fresh vegetables indoors. A food bank in Quebec will be able to invest in cold storage so that it can provide more food to families year-round.
Budget 2024 proposes to provide $62.9 million over three years to renew and expand the local food infrastructure fund to support community organizations across Canada to invest in local food infrastructure, with priority to be given to indigenous and Black communities, along with other equity-deserving groups. Part of the expansion will support organizations to improve infrastructure for school food programs as a complement to the national school food program.
Canada is fortunate to have the very best farmers who work tirelessly to grow and deliver high-quality, nutritious food every day. Sadly, far too many children still go to school on an empty stomach. That is why budget 2024 commits $1 billion over five years to a national food program to provide kids with healthy meals so that they can learn, grow and reach their full potential. This initiative will create new opportunities for local farmers, food processors, harvesters, and the under-represented and marginalized groups in the agriculture and food sector.
Canada's proposed national school food program would help ensure a bright future for schoolchildren across Canada and help us build a stronger economy for all Canadians. We all recognize the importance of supporting our youth, especially when they start their day. All too often, we consider the price of food as a hindrance, but this is what is necessary to ensure all those who need it most can be provided for.
To improve food security in Canada, we continue to work hard to make Canada's grocery sector stronger and more resilient. That includes our support of industry's effort to develop a grocery code of conduct. It is great to see that more grocers are now supporting the code. The goal is to make the relationship between retailers and suppliers more transparent and more predictable, for the good of the food supply chain. With key businesses participating, the code would be more effective; ultimately, this would benefit both the industry as a whole and consumers. The code needs to be implemented quickly so that it can increase the strength and resilience of Canada's food supply chain while building consumer confidence.
We fully recognize that rising food prices make things challenging for many Canadians and can worsen their food security status. Our government has made progress in addressing poverty as one of the main causes of food insecurity and is making life more affordable for Canadians via investments in child care and housing. We introduced a GST tax credit of $2.5 billion for families living with lower incomes, who are likely to be disproportionately impacted by inflation affecting food products, shelter and transportation. We have introduced targeted measures to improve overall affordability for Canadians, including delivering on more affordable child care options and a national dental care program.
In budget 2024, we committed to supporting competitive prices for groceries and other essentials and giving Canadians more choices by monitoring grocers' work to help stabilize prices, as well as investigating other price inflation practices in the grocery sector through the grocery task force; by maintaining the food price data hub to give Canadians detailed information on food prices, which helps them make informed decisions about their grocery options; by tackling shrinkflation, including through the office of consumer affairs, which has launched research projects to investigate and reveal price inflation and harmful business practices that reduce the quantity and quality of groceries; and by enhancing competition through the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, which amended the Competition Act to enhance competition, including in the grocery sector. This act gives more power to the Competition Bureau to crack down on unfair practices and empowers the Competition Bureau to block corporations from stifling competition.
The government will continue to fight for fair prices and to work collaboratively with all members of the House in order to achieve fairness in the system.
To truly strengthen our local food infrastructure, we must also look to our actions to protect the environment. We are making a concerted effort to address the environment, or at least some of us are. Not everyone on the other side agrees, but it is essential to fight climate change to improve the opportunities for our farmers. We are making historic investments of $1.5 billion to help Canadian farmers boost their climate resiliency through sustainable practices and technology.
Climate change ultimately affects and impacts all of us. We need to take real and concrete measures to help our producers provide food for Canada and around the world. However, they have to be competitive in a world market that does price carbon, and they have to be competitive in order to produce the product in a sustainable fashion.
We are not standing down. For example, over the past two years, our on-farm climate action fund has made available almost $100 million in direct support to over 4,000 farmers across Canada. With this, they can take action on their farms to reduce their carbon footprint through cover cropping, nitrogen management and rotational grazing.
All indications point to a strong interest in this program among farmers. That is why we are investing over $470 million to extend the program until 2028. Our agricultural clean-technology program has also provided over $200 million in funding over the past three years to support more than 400 on-farm projects across Canada, from solar energy to precision agriculture and energy-efficient grain-dryers. Under our agriscience program, we are supporting research to help provide differences in the agricultural sectors to reduce their carbon footprint, to find innovation and innovative ways to produce effectively while reducing our carbon footprint. For example, the beef cattle research cluster, backed by the industry's government investments of almost $22 million over the last five years, drives research to key industry priorities, including climate change and the environment.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has also launched the agricultural methane reduction challenge, which will offer prize money for up to $12 million for innovators advancing low-cost solutions to reduce methane emissions from cattle. Let us not forget that climate resilience is at the heart of the new sustainable Canadian agricultural partnership. This is a federal-provincial-territorial agreement on priorities and investments that will drive the Canadian agricultural and agri-food sector over the next five years. The new funding partnership will give producers and processors the tools they need to strengthen the sector's sustainability, competitiveness and resilience.
As part of this additional funding, the new $250-million cost-shared resilient agricultural landscape program is helping to recognize ecological goods and services produced by farmers. This is important for improving on-farm resiliency and biodiversity, while also contributing to the reduction of emissions in the sector. We also have a network of 14 living labs across Canada, where researchers work side by side with farmers to find environmental solutions that work on farms.
We are working beyond election cycles. This is long term in scope and in effect. We are working, then, to foster ways to support the industry for many years to come on the new sustainable agricultural strategy. Producers and other stakeholders are contributing to the development of this strategy, to ensure that Canada's agricultural sector is ready and able to recover quickly from extreme events, to thrive in changing climates, to meet our climate goals and to feed the world.
Taking action now is necessary to help reduce risks over the long term of extreme weather, new pests, flooding and drought. The impacts of a changing climate will continue to be felt by our farmers and ranchers and by all Canadians. It is our responsibility to act now, to ensure that Canadian food continues to be sustainably grown for our planet and for the generations to come.
Our government's investments are helping farmers harness cutting-edge technology to help feed Canadians and the world more sustainably. By taking action in all these key areas, we will not only drive sustainable food production for the future, but we will also improve food security in Canada and the world, as well as advancing towards meeting our United Nations sustainable development goal of zero hunger for 2030.
Food security is a concern, both globally and locally. The Government of Canada recognizes that, across Canada, food prices and food security concerns have been on the rise, putting pressure on household finances and making it more difficult for many families to afford nutritious foods. We continue working to strengthen Canada's food systems, from improving access to healthy and culturally diverse food to ensuring sustainable food production and processing, supporting strong local food infrastructure and reducing food waste.
Helping all people living in Canada to access healthy food is a priority. All Canadians, regardless of where they live, deserve access to affordable and nutritious food. We must work in concert with one another to achieve that goal.
Aside from the partisan attacks, there is so much at stake, and that is the livelihood of Canadians. We will do everything necessary to support our farmers and our communities to foster that sustainability and diversity. Food prices are essentially at the heart of the matter, because affordability matters at this point. The supply chain across the system has been strained. The initiative that we are taking is with a holistic policy that captures and deals with all the elements that are around the agri-food business, and the economy and the environment and all are at stake. Therefore, we will do everything we can to support those most in need, to foster ways to reduce food prices and to ensure a sustainable, long-term, prosperous agri-food industry in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I have to admit that I am a little tough on the NDP sometimes, not only here in the House, but also out on my travels and during the touring I do across the country on behalf of our party, our and the official opposition.
I consider myself a relatively nice guy, but I have to say that my patience is wearing thin when it comes to the credibility of the NDP. I have had the opportunity to visit northern Ontario several times, making the drive to North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and all points in between. The NDP's continued propping up of the tired Liberal government is a frustrating point in itself, but members can just imagine how unpopular the ever-increasing carbon tax is in northern Ontario.
If someone has to go from Timmins down to Sudbury, which is about a three and a half hour drive, the carbon tax is driving up the cost of gas to go to medical appointments. It is adding a cost to groceries when reefer trucks have to go up to northern Ontario to deliver food. The NDP is completely out of touch with the communities in northern Ontario it claims to represent well.
Let us talk about Vancouver Island. Out there, over the course of the last couple of years, so many people who cast a ballot for the NDP in the last election have buyer's remorse. They did not vote for the NDP to prop up the Liberals in a four-year coalition deal, to cover up their scandals or to go along with the and his out-of-touch agenda, which has driven up inflation, doubled housing prices and doubled our national debt. The increasingly frustrating point for those people is, if they had wanted to vote for the Prime Minister to remain in power, they would have voted Liberal. They voted NDP for something different, but instead, they got nothing but the same.
There is a hypocrisy here. There is a double standard that the NDP need to be called out on. I am happy to do so time and time again. I will remind Canadians of that, whether it be on Vancouver Island, in northern Ontario, or any other place where the NDP currently holds seats. The NDP props up the Liberals on every budget. There is a hypocrisy there because, in the budget speeches, NDP members complain that things are put in the budget but never followed through on.
One thing the NDP does as well is that it covers up the constant scandals that the Conservatives try to get answers for at committee. The “cover-up coalition” is a term we have used several times over the course of the last couple of years, such as with the Winnipeg lab documents, foreign interference and ArriveCan. The number of times the NDP has voted to shut down meetings, shut down committee studies and investigations into the numerous examples of waste, is endless and frustrating those who have, perhaps, traditionally in the past, supported the NDP. Many traditional NDP supporters say that they do not recognize the party anymore, and rightfully so.
That is why I believe common-sense Conservatives are really getting some good momentum across the country. We are the contrast. After nine years, the government wants to quadruple the carbon tax from its current levels. We want to axe the carbon tax. When we say something to Canadians, we are the ones who will follow through and do it, unlike the NDP, and we are here in the House today on its opposition day motion. The NDP members claim they stand up against corporate greed and against corporate welfare handouts. To clarify, this is a non-binding motion that the NDP has presented here. This is the shell game and the charade that it plays. Canadians are calling it out, and rightfully so.
This motion, if it passes or not, will not force the Liberal government to make any change that it claims it wants to have. If only there were something the NDP members could do to get their way and maybe make a change in this country. They could stop propping up the tired, out-of-touch and corrupt and Liberal-NDP government. They could let Canadians decide. If they are so confident about their ideas, and if they are so confident that they are on the right track, they should have no problem in an election. It has been three years since the last election, so call the question. Let us have an election and let Canadians decide. There is a reason we are dealing with a non-binding motion here today.
I will split my time today with the member for , a great member from eastern Ontario. I just want to say I feel bad for the NDP because it is on full display today just how hypocritical it is with its messaging and its attempts to make Canadians believe it is different than the current Liberal government.
Today, we are debating an NDP opposition day motion. Just moments ago, during Routine Proceedings, the Speaker tabled the Auditor General's latest set of reports on spending by the Liberal-NDP government, spending that was not only approved by the Liberals, but also propped up fully, every single time, by the NDP.
A report came out regarding Sustainable Development Technology Canada. That is the Liberal-NDP green slush fund that has been under scandal and under review for months. The report was just tabled. If the NDP wants to tackle corporate greed, corporate welfare, corporate handouts and Liberal insiders getting special privileges and giving contracts to taxpayer money, this is the real deal of what we are talking about.
Here are the Auditor General's words, hot off the press, just tabled here this morning, on this green slush fund scandal. The report states that they found that money was awarded to “funding to projects that were ineligible, that conflicts of interest existed in some instances, and that certain requirements...were not met.” The report continues, “We found that the [group appointed by the Liberals] awarded funding to 10 ineligible projects...awarded $59 million even though they did not meet key requirements set out in the contribution agreements”.
It goes on. Here is how bad the corruption is. This is supported and voted for by the NDP and, trust me, it is going to continue to prop the Liberals up. The report also states, “Also...we found 90 cases that were connected to approval decisions, representing nearly $76 million in funding awarded to projects, where the foundation's conflict-of-interest policies were not followed.”
What does that mean? Let me simplify it. It means Liberal appointees gave money, in conflict of interest, to their Liberal friends and corporate insiders, approved by the NDP and propped up by the NDP. We talk about corporate greed, corporate welfare and waste of taxpayers' money in corruption. Right there from the Auditor General, the NDP is going to have a lot to answer for if it wants to keep propping the Liberals up, and not through a non-binding opposition day motion, but again, continued confidence in the Liberal government. The NDP has zero credibility.
If that was not enough, the Auditor General has been busy, and there was a second report today about the amount of money spent on outside contractors and consultants under the Liberal government. Professional Services Contract was the title of the report. Let me just say this: McKinsey, a Liberal insider firm, has received over $200 million, $209 million, over the course of the last several years. It found many examples of departments and agencies, and eight out of 10 Crown corporations failed to properly follow all aspects of their procurement policies and guidance on at least a contract they had with McKinsey.
The investigation needs to continue. We need to get to the bottom of this and stop these corporate handouts that are coming from the NDP-Liberal government. Let us remember, it is not just the Liberals tabling a budget. It is the NDP going along, carte blanche, approving all these, whether it be the budget, the estimates or the cover-ups at committees, as Conservatives try to get to the bottom, to root this out, to stop this corporate welfare handout to Liberal inside friends. It is the NDP that needs to answer for it.
At the end of the day, there are things we can do in this country that are not being done after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government. We have a competition problem in this country. The NDP, despite all its complaints and its tough questions in question period, props the status quo up of these Liberals each and every time.
A key item that could provide immediate relief, controlled by the federal government, is to axe the carbon tax. It is now clear. It is driving up grocery prices, and they are just getting started. The Liberals want to quadruple the carbon tax to 61¢ a litre. It is out of touch. Canadians are out of money. Frankly, with this motion, they are tired of the NDP hypocrisy of always talking a tough game and then propping up the Liberals until at least next fall. I cannot wait for Canadians to have their say at the next election.
:
Madam Speaker, $1 billion is the excess profit RBC made over and above its last quarter in 2023 because the NDP did not stop the merger, approved by the , of RBC buying small, scrappy competitor HSBC. The NDP in this House of Commons is a walking contradiction. The New Democrats talk about corporate greed and about going after big, greedy corporations, but in not saying no to the merger of RBC and HSBC, RBC became richer and Canadians became poorer. At the end of the day, Canadians feel they have been sold out by the NDP, which is not holding government to account and not standing up for Canadians.
There are three mega-mergers by the Liberal government that the NDP has not stopped. Rogers and Shaw merged only a year ago, which meant that cellphone prices went up, and we have WestJet and Sunwing, and it was just announced a couple weeks ago that Sunwing will be shutting down.
Competition means that we have more players fighting for our dollars to ensure we bring prices down and service up. In Canada, we have a major monopoly problem, where we have too many big players that have squeezed smaller players out, and the result of that is that Canadians are paying the highest prices in the world.
After nine years of the Liberal government, Canadians pay the highest cellphone bills in the world: three times as much as Australia and twice as much as the U.S. and Europe. When it comes to bank fees, Canadians pay among the highest bank fees in the world. Only six banks control 95% of mortgages. We look at cellphone bills and how they are affecting families unable to afford groceries at the grocery store and wanting to use cellphones for safety, education or the workplace. They are simply saying that they cannot afford those bills; they are too much. When we look at airlines, we have only two airlines that control 80% of all the air travel in Canada. We look at those fees, the junk fees, taxes and airport fees, and they are among the highest in the world.
The New Democrats have had an ample chance to say no. They have a supply agreement. They are the only party in this House that is propping up the government, and by not standing up to say no to RBC-HSBC, the result has been almost 1% higher mortgage rates, specifically in Vancouver and Toronto, where HSBC had 10% of Vancouver mortgage rates and 5% of Toronto mortgage rates. The NDP was not able to say no to Rogers and Shaw, and prices have gone up, even though the promised that he would halve prices for Canadians. The NDP was not able to say no to WestJet and Sunwing, and Sunwing is being obliterated and eliminated.
The NDP government is a walking contradiction by standing up for “corporate bad” and standing up for Canadians, who are the opposite of that. Canadians feel they have been completely sold out. There is even a limerick for it—
:
Madam Speaker, the New Democrats are applauding this record. Canadians right now are poorer than they have ever been and are paying more for services compared to the rest of the world. We have less competition. There was even a limerick on this:
The NDP let the Big Fish Swim
HSBC Shaw, they're all in
RBC and Rogers GREW
Sunwing flew right out of view.
At the end of the day, the NDP was the only party and its leader to say no to these mergers to help Canadians. When we look at what is happening with grocery prices, it is the only party that could have said no to what is raising the prices of groceries the most across Canada, which is the carbon tax. When we tax the farmer who grows the food, the truckers who ship the food and the manufacturers who make the food, those taxes add costs all the way down the line and grocery prices have gone up.
More importantly, when we look at competition for groceries, even though we heard in this House of Commons Loblaws consistently and Metro hardly ever, not once have we heard about the manufacturers, the manufacturing size and scope of these big monopolies that exist not only across Canada but across North America: Nestlé, PepsiCo, Tyson Foods, Kraft Heinz, Archer Daniels Midland and George Weston Limited. Manufacturers are charging excessive amounts for their products because there is no competition.
When we talk about competition, I finally figured out why it is so wrong with the NDP and the Liberals. If one were to sit down on a three-legged stool, there is balance. There are three legs and that is really what we are missing in competition: one is regulation, one is competition and one is innovation. The common-sense Conservatives talk about these three things.
First, on the need for regulation, we do not believe in the big, powerful companies. We want to make sure there is regulation, companies are held in check and Competition Act changes are made. I have a bill that would eliminate the efficiencies defence. Second, looking at competition, we need small players to grow and compete. Third, we need to make sure we have innovation, new ways to bring innovation and bring more competition to Canadians. I finally figured it out with this three-legged stool. The NDP only has one leg. That is why, when people sit on it, they talk about regulation, regulation, regulation and not innovation or competition. People topple over, and they topple left. It is how it goes.
When we talk about what we need for competition, of course we need to talk about regulation, but we have to talk about competition in Canada. No aspect of this motion talks about taking on manufacturers and their large profits or looking at who can grow in Canada. Let us talk about Save-On-Foods with 183 locations in western Canada. Why are we not helping Save-on-Foods come east in Canada? Freson Bros. in Alberta has 16 stores throughout the province, a great, locally owned grocery store. Why are we not helping it grow, expand and get to the rest of Canada? We are looking at how locally owned grocers can play a part in competing in the Canadian economy.
There are new innovations right now. People can order groceries on their phones and they are delivered to their doors. There is normally a four-dollar delivery fee, but what is being eliminated? It eliminates the warehousing and the retail store. The biggest advantage that Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro have, besides the 's brother working for one of those companies, Metro, is real estate. The biggest monopoly in some of that real estate is the real estate investment trusts. They own all the land. Of course those grocery stores are going to be tough to compete against because they own the land on which they reside. Grocery right now is a retail game. It is basically a real estate game. They own the land on the right side of Main Street, and people driving home from work, driving to work or on the weekend get groceries for their families. They have a complete and utter monopoly on how we get groceries to Canadians.
It has to be about distribution, which is part of innovation. It has to be competition, meaning we are bringing more competitors in. It has to be regulation, but regulation also means that we get rid of the burden of the carbon tax, which we know is increasing those prices. None of that is in this opposition day motion. When we talk about what could have happened for Canadians, there are motions and ideas, but we had ideas up front, we have put forward motions that the government could have made and that the NDP could have said no to, which was opposing the three mergers that are hurting Canadians today.
The fact is that Canada cannot even get cellphone prices down. We have the highest in the world. The answer, of course, is the same thing: competition and innovation to get those prices down. When we look at bank fees, open banking will revolutionize banking in Canada, if we can ever do it. It has taken six years to get regulation in place. When we look at airlines, airports and competition as a whole, the only party in the House that is even willing to look at this is the common-sense Conservative Party. A common-sense Conservative government understands there are three legs to a stool. We know we are going to create competition, and we know we are going to ensure there is innovation. We are going to axe the carbon tax. We are going to ensure there are regulations so the monopolies do not control this economy. We will bring back competition to Canadians, to their families and to their savings and their households.
:
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for .
Today, we are talking about the price of groceries and the food we eat. First, as they start their season, I would like to take a few seconds in the House to thank all those in Quebec's agricultural and processing sectors who feed us. Many of my colleagues from all parties, especially those of the Bloc Québécois, are from Quebec agricultural ridings that feed our cities. In particular, I am thinking of the member from and the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
I feel it is very important to acknowledge the work of people in the agricultural sector. They work hard under tough market conditions. Global warming and climate conditions do not help. Bad weather adds to all the economic hardship these people face. However, in the past year, the federal government has offered virtually no meaningful programs to help them. I therefore want to recognize their work.
Today, we are debating this NDP motion. I have mixed feelings about it because we know the NDP has something of talent for making accurate diagnoses but proposing solutions that, to put it politely, are inappropriate and ill-conceived. Maybe it is because of incompetence. I cannot say. Anyway, the NDP makes diagnoses.
For example, they said people need dental care. Their solution was to ask the government with the least competence and no jurisdiction in this area to implement a program that violates the Constitution by sending cheques to people, making them wait and not clearly outlining the parameters to them, not to mention that its management was turned over to the private sector.
A diagnosis with a bad solution is the hallmark of the NDP. It is the same thing with the pharmacare system. The New Democrats are good at stating the obvious: In their opinion, people need prescription drugs. I thank the NDP, because no one here had any idea. Here again, the NDP comes up with a solution, namely to call on the federal government to get involved and impose conditions on the provinces. Given that Quebec already has its own plan and is innovating, they are destabilizing that plan and slowing down the progress of Quebec's system, which is still a model in the federation. They are actually slowing down innovation, because a province that is innovating can inspire the other provinces.
That is the hallmark of the NDP. It makes an obvious diagnosis of an obvious problem. In this particular case, let us keep in mind that for 30 years the NDP was not interested in this problem, although it has easily existed for 30 or 40 years in our competition regime. However, after a period of 7%, 8% or 9% annual inflation, the NDP is suddenly interested and is proposing a strange solution. The NDP's solution is to control prices, in other words, cap them.
I am all for discussing the price of food, because it is true that prices have increased. How do we cap the price of groceries? We open a new tower here in Ottawa and fill it with public servants who will search through flyers all day long: Butter will be such and such a price, celery is too expensive in Val-d'Or, maybe beets should be cheaper in Rimouski, and a loaf of bread in Plateau Mont-Royal costs 25¢ too much.
This was already done in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s. They were exceptional measures. It was also done during the Second World War, when they had the Office of Price Administration. That place was filled with public servants who threw papers from one floor to another, as in “the place that sends you mad”, in an Asterix film. At the time, in all the non-communist regimes where this was done, these were exceptional measures implemented in response to an exceptional situation. The problem with what the NDP is proposing is that it is seeking an exceptional measure to address a problem that has become permanent. That is the wrong way to approach the problem.
The same is true of bringing in a windfall profit tax. It might be a good tax. It may be that this tax will not distort markets. Tax specialists tell us that some taxes are better than others in that they are less harmful to the economy, which will come as a surprise to the Conservatives. In the Bloc Québécois, we once proposed a temporary windfall tax on certain profits. It was a surtax on the banks, because they had made excess profits during the pandemic, and those temporary measures could be considered appropriate.
In this case, however, the situation is structural. In 1986, I was four years old. Revealing my age is not something I like doing, but someone put it on Wikipedia so what can I do. In 1986, there were 13 major grocery chains competing with each other. Over the years, some of them swallowed up others. Bigger chains emerged, to the point where today Canada has only three major chains—yes, three. I would remind everyone that geographically speaking, Canada is a very big country, and we have only three chains—five, if we count Costco and Walmart. Target tried but came up short. We started out with 13 large chains and now we are down to five. That is the problem. The problem lies in our competition system. What will we do? Will we let five players divvy up 80% of the market, fill an office tower with public servants and institute price controls? Therein lies the problem.
I will show how easy it is to diagnose the lack of competition here, as well as the obstacles to investment. The profit margin of Canada's major grocery chains is about 5%. People might say that is not a very big margin, but we are dealing here with a volume market where five players share 80% of the market. Five per cent is a fairly large margin, because in Europe the average margin is 3%. In the United States the average margin is 2%. Furthermore, since there is more competition in the U.S., there is more innovation. One of the leading competition law specialists testified in committee that, unlike here in Canada, there is a differentiated offer in the U.S., in that grocery stores are different from one another and there are different models. Here in Canada, however, when people walk into one grocery store or another, they can see they are all the same. They could change their name tomorrow and we would not even notice a difference.
I said profit margins are 5% in Canada and 2% in the United States. In a functional market, what should happen in this situation? Eventually, an American chain would decide it is no crazier than anybody else, and it would come open grocery stores in Canada and make 5%.
What is happening instead? We have a , whom I admire for his boundless energy, flying to the U.S. so he can chase down grocers and beg them to open stores here. Clearly, there is an investment issue. There is something wrong when Bloomberg says that Canada has become a top investment destination for some industries, yet American grocery retailers just kilometres away do not want to come here.
Why? Maybe it is because there is still anti-competitive behaviour going on, there are regulatory barriers, and the other players are too big. The NDP does not mention this, however. It did not do this analysis, and that is why we will continue to live in a market dominated by a handful of major players.
Yes, improvements have been made. The commissioner of competition has been given the power to subpoena witnesses and compel them to produce documents. He has been given the power to launch investigations. His powers have been enhanced, but this is like moving from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Just a few months ago, Canada's competition regime was the same as it was in the 1980s, and it is changing at a snail's pace. However, all competing markets give their commissioners more powers. They give them more freedom. There is always a presumption in favour of consumers, and the commissioner does not have to constantly go to court, only to lose the case in the end.
We need a major overhaul and regulatory reform. This would require a Parliament that cares about competition and innovation. It would also require stable and predictable supply chains, as well as local production. Free trade is great, but it requires reciprocity of standards, because we are importing products treated with pesticides that are banned in Canada. When the pandemic hit, obviously, supply chains broke down. This would be part of the solution.
Today's motion gives us an opportunity to talk about and debate food prices. Food is the second highest household expense item. Unfortunately, however, I have my doubts that filling office towers with public servants to control prices is an appropriate way to address a situation that deserves a considerable amount of our attention.
:
Madam Speaker, yesterday evening we were debating a Conservative amendment to a Standing Committee on Finance report. This amendment sought to revive the proposal we had voted against just a few hours earlier, the miracle solution of the tax holiday that would last all summer. The taxes would resume once the House was back in session, just in time for us to collectively complain about their return.
Earlier yesterday, we were debating the simplistic solution to the fight against high grocery prices, because, as we know, in addition to solving all the world's ills, world hunger, the cancer and AIDS epidemics and all other problems, axing the tax on carbon will also guarantee more affordable food prices for all. In fact, if we abolish the carbon tax, food costs would go down to zero and everyone would eat for free.
A day after the Conservatives' simplistic motion, we are studying a simplistic motion moved by the NDP. We are shifting from a tax break to a price cap. I will read the NDP motion, as I will be talking about the three proposals it contains. There are some good ideas in there, but the Bloc Québécois cannot support it as a whole. It reads as follows:
That, given that the cost of food continues to increase while grocery giants such as Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys make record profits, the House call on the government to:
(a) force big grocery chains and suppliers to lower the prices of essential foods or else face a price cap or other measures;
(b) stop delaying long-needed reforms to the Nutrition North program; and
(c) stop Liberal and Conservative corporate handouts to big grocers.
The first thing is the basic wording, “That, given that the cost of food continues to increase while grocery giants make record profits”. We all agree on that. However, we run into the same problem that we saw with the Conservatives. They focus on the perfectly legitimate public anger, but then offer simplistic solutions instead of truly addressing the root of the problem.
Let us begin with point (a): “force big grocery chains and suppliers to lower the prices of essential foods or else face a price cap”. Say we support it. Now I would want to know how we are supposed to do this. Is there a how-to manual? How do we go about imposing a cap on the price of bread, for example, when wheat prices are negotiated at the Toronto Stock Exchange? How do we go about imposing a cap on the price of fresh vegetables, when prices are skyrocketing mainly because of crop losses due to drought or flooding, which are caused by climate change?
Unlike the Conservatives, the NDP does believe in climate change. However, the NDP continues to support the budgetary policies introduced by the Liberals, who are always giving handouts to oil companies, even though they contribute more to climate change than any other sector.
How do we force farmers to lower their prices when the price of nitrogen fertilizer has quadrupled? The price per tonne jumped from $250 to $1,000 between 2020 and 2022. How do we force a Californian produce grower to sell their broccoli cheaper in Canada than in the United States? Does the NDP think it can wave a magic wand and cap prices without creating shortages?
Point (a) is impractical and unfeasible, which is already reason enough for the Bloc Québécois to vote against the motion, despite the good intentions behind it.
Now, let us look at the enhancement of the nutrition north program. I will start by saying that this is a good measure. Since 2011, nutrition north has subsidized grocers in the far north to compensate for the high cost of transportation and lower the price of groceries. However, the program does not fully compensate for the high costs, which are due not just to transportation costs but also to low volumes and higher operating costs. Considering that the average income in the Inuit community is around $23,000 a year, which is shockingly low, it is clear that food insecurity must be a widespread problem.
Businesses offer workers from outside the community a golden bridge to encourage them to work in the north. The income of non-indigenous individuals is approximately $95,000 a year, according to a study by Gérard Duhaime, a professor at Université Laval with whom I rubbed shoulders in a previous life.
We agree with that part of the motion. If that was all the motion contained, both my colleague from and I would have given very short speeches, two minutes at most. We would merely have said that we supported the motion. Unfortunately, all the rest of it dilutes and undermines the proposal's credibility.
The third point calls on the government to “stop Liberal and Conservative corporate handouts to big grocers”. The only thing we want to know is what that is referring to. The NDP often talks about a subsidy that Loblaw received a few years ago to replace its refrigerators with more energy-efficient models. That in itself is no scandal. I think we all aspire to that.
Besides that, the only handout I see the Liberals and Conservatives giving big grocers is their inaction. By doing nothing, by remaining silent and not taking action, they are giving them an indirect handout. In fact, there are no subsidy programs specifically for grocers, apart from nutrition north, for which the NDP is asking for more funding today. The NDP supports the only subsidy that exists. It is asking the government to enhance and improve the program, and that is what we are asking for as well.
As mentioned earlier, the companies that are really gorging on subsidies are the oil companies. In the past two years, the federal government has given them subsidy after subsidy. That was always the case, but it did not stop when the infamous coalition agreement with the NDP was signed. The tax breaks set out in all the budgets and economic statements will total $83 billion by 2035. That is more than $2,000 per capita, or almost $4,000 per taxpayer. The NDP keeps supporting every budget, every economic statement and every appropriation, no questions asked, in the name of an agreement to further intrude on Quebec's jurisdictions.
This spring, Parliament has been seized with bills and . Today, the Standing Committee on Finance is voting as part of the clause-by-clause study of Bill C‑69. They could be at it until midnight tonight. It provides $48 billion in tax breaks mostly for the oil companies. Does the NDP support that? The answer is yes.
Since I only have two minutes left, I will finish my speech quickly. I will try to talk as fast as an auctioneer at those events we all occasionally attend in our ridings.
That being said, there is a real problem. I must emphasize that. The grocery industry is dominated by a handful of moguls, namely Loblaw, Sobeys and Metro. In 2022 alone, these three companies, the most affluent companies in the sector, reported over $100 billion in sales and drew in profits exceeding $3.6 billion. Yes, there is a competition problem. Small entrepreneurs have a hard time breaking into the market, since the grocery giants control everything. With a mixture of astonishment and consternation, we are seeing the growing concentration in the sector make it harder and harder for new entrants to break into the market or expand, making competition almost non-existent.
According to a 2023 Competition Bureau report, a grocery sector strategy is urgently needed. If the Liberals and Conservatives are giving these giants any handouts, it is by not having a strategy. That is the handout.
Let us agree on the fact that there are several possible solutions. We need to make it easier for foreign investors to enter the market. We need to increase the number of independent grocers. We also need to have clearer and more harmonized requirements for unit pricing. We also need to take measures to discourage, or even prohibit, property controls in the grocery sector. These controls restrict competing grocers from leasing space in the same building. They make opening new grocery stores much more difficult, if not impossible, and this reduces competition in our communities.
Why is competition so important? It is the backbone of the economy. Simplistic solutions are not the answer. The answer is more competition in the grocery sector.
:
Uqaqtittiji, before I start my speech, I would like to send my best and happiest birthday wishes to my son, Robin. I love him so much, and I am excited to see him again sometime soon.
With respect to the nutrition north program, I thank the NDP for this opposition day motion to bring to light why we have been making efforts to have it overhauled. The inaction by the Liberals has compelled the NDP to make sure that during this debate we talk about the inadequacy of the program.
To give a bit of history, the nutrition north program replaced a food mail program, which at the time paid, directly to consumers, the cost of shipping nutritious perishable food and essential items by air to isolated and northern communities. It was originally a program that gave subsidies directly to consumers. This program was changed to the nutrition north program by the Conservative government. When Conservatives replaced the food mail program with the nutrition north program, they made it abundantly clear that they preferred to support corporate greed. The subsidy changed from helping regular people afford food to giving millions to corporations like The North West Company. The North West Company receives 51% of the subsidy. In total, about 125 of its stores use tax dollars to put profits into their pockets in communities where food insecurity is the highest.
After Conservatives changed the program, the Liberals have not done much better. They have allowed this Conservative-created program to keep supporting corporate greed. Since I was elected in 2021, I have stood in the House time and time again to ask the Liberal government to make changes to the nutrition north program. I have asked 17 times what it will do to help alleviate poverty by improving the program. I have asked about expired food arriving in communities. In effect, the Co-ops were paying cargo fees for nutritious food to arrive in their communities, only to have it taken directly from the airport to the dump.
The response from the was that the Liberal government increased its tax dollars going to corporate greed. It added $163.5 million to address food insecurity in the north. A study showed that for every dollar in the subsidy, only a third was used; the rest went to corporate greed. The North West Company received about $67 million from the nutrition north program. These tax dollars are supposed to help alleviate poverty.
In a written question to the Liberal government, I asked what quality assurance mechanisms were in place to ensure that perishable goods from all sources reach their final retail destination prior to their best before date.
The response states, “Nutrition North Canada does not implement or enforce quality assurance mechanisms on retailers and suppliers. Registered retailers and suppliers are responsible for managing the logistics of their respective supply chains, and Nutrition North Canada's subsidy helps to reduce the selling price of food for customers by offsetting considerable operational costs. Any grocery retailers regardless of location will have product which cannot be sold related to dating, as its normal part of the operation.” It further states, “Nutrition North Canada does not implement or enforce quality assurance mechanisms on retailers and suppliers.”
Given the lack of informed responses from the Liberal , I was compelled to call on the CEO of The North West Company, the CEOs of Northern Airways and the CEO of a local co-operative in Kimmirut, the Kimik Co-Op.
During that session at the indigenous and northern affairs committee, we revealed that The North West Company CEO made over a million dollars in bonuses in 2023, on top of the $3 million and $5 million bonuses he had received in 2022 and 2021. Meanwhile, salaries for workers in Iqaluit, like cashiers, are only at $37,000 a year. This might sound like a lot to southern Canada, but this means that those workers are living below the poverty rate.
Amautiit Nunavut Inuit Women's Association recently released Nunavut's first-ever report card on child poverty. In it, they urged immediate action. They reported that Nunavut families continue to grapple with food insecurity and continue to experience barriers to nutritious and culturally relevant food. In their report, they state that while there is no figure for Nunavut, Ontario's threshold for poverty is $45,324. The report showed that in 2021, Nunavut had the highest child poverty rate under 18 at 35.8%, compared to all other jurisdictions.
I have been told that the nutrition north program is not working, over and over again. It took me almost three years, due to the the size of Nunavut, to reach all the 25 fly-in communities I represent. In each community, the biggest issue was always housing, but close to the biggest issue of housing, the cost of groceries was always at the top of a list of issues for Nunavummiut to be able to thrive.
All the time, they share the prices of food, and whenever I have been in the communities, I have checked the prices myself. In Kimmirut, at the Kimik Co-Op and at the Northern store, in that same day, I compared the prices of eggs that were offered. The price of a dozen eggs at the Co-op Kimik store was $3.99. I think that is comparable to southern prices. In that same community, on that same day, the price of a dozen eggs at The North West Company store was $6.49. That is almost a $3 difference.
When the says that parts of the program are working, it is due to the local Co-ops taking advantage of the program the way they are supposed to, in order to reduce prices of nutritious food. It is the local Co-ops in Nunavut communities that are helping their communities to afford quality food. Corporations like The North West Company are not helping to alleviate the cost of food.
One final comment I wanted to make is about the carbon tax. Nunavut is exempt from carbon tax on aviation fuel. As I said earlier, all 25 communities are fly-in communities. When groceries are being flown to communities, there is no carbon tax on the groceries that are being flown in, which can be attributed to the cost of shipping nutritious food to Nunavummiut.
I welcome the opportunity to answer questions.
:
Mr. Speaker, this is on top of the fact that the was in government when the Conservatives gave out massive corporate handouts, $2.35 billion, to big grocers, which the Liberals have maintained. We can see very clearly that the Conservatives and the Liberals have been making life easier for the biggest corporations, which makes life harder for everyday Canadians.
It is government's responsibility to make life better for Canadians. It is why we, my NDP colleagues and I, are taking corporate greed head on. We are taking it on when it comes to grocery store chains, when it comes to oil and gas companies and when it comes to the big banks. We have been calling for an excess profit tax on all these sectors. We were able to force the Liberals to implement a one-time tax on the biggest banks, but they refused to extend that to big box stores, to the grocery store chains that are gouging Canadians, while Canadians are going to food banks in record numbers. They refused to put that excess profit tax on the oil and gas companies that are fuelling the climate crisis, while raking in record profits and scaling back their climate commitments.
We need to stop greedy corporations from ripping Canadians off on the food they need. We need a government that takes its responsibility seriously to protect Canadians, whether it is from the greed of grocery store chains, whether it is from the greed of oil and gas companies or the biggest banks that are funding and fuelling the the oil and gas companies. These changes are long needed, and Canadians can see clearly that the government is failing.
Food should be affordable for everyone. The Conservatives and the Liberals have a choice. Will they keep standing with the biggest corporations, with the grocery CEOs who are getting million-dollar bonuses, or are they going to stand with Canadians who need a government that has their back, that will take the action needed to lower food prices?
We are asking the government to force big grocery chains and suppliers to lower their prices of essential foods. If they do not, then the government has to put in place a price cap or use other measures and penalties. We have seen this around the world. France and Greece are taking bold action to ensure that on essential commodities, the things that people need to live, companies cannot drive up the price just to pad their pockets, just to give their CEOs millions of dollars in bonuses and their shareholders billions of dollars in profits.
We know that the biggest grocery store chains have control over some of their prices. They have announced price freezes on store name brands. We saw that with no name products. All of these grocery stores have their own brands. A cap on prices on these items is clearly within their control. However, the government cannot just ask nicely if those grocery stores might please, voluntarily, maybe freeze prices. The government needs to force them to make this change.
So far, the Liberals have promised Canadians that they will stabilize food prices, but they have failed to do it. The has asked the grocery store chains to come up with a plan to lower prices. When asked what would happen if they did not, the Prime Minister said, “If their plan doesn't provide real relief ... then we will—
:
Mr. Speaker, I apologize; that was completely unintentional. If you will indulge me, I will start from the top and eliminate the name.
I want to thank the page for the podium here and say that I am very grateful for the opportunity to respond to comments made earlier by the regarding the actions that our government is taking to address the very real food affordability challenges that Canadians are experiencing. That includes my neighbours, friends and family in Milton, Ontario.
We have an obligation to ensure that all Canadians have access to food and other daily essential goods. I said yesterday in the House of Commons that it is not as though Canadians can simply buy less food. Food is an essential item and needs to be affordable in our country.
Our government has been actively engaged and committed to improving affordability across the board with the view to alleviating the financial stress that is placed on Canadians. While we are doing that, we are addressing the growing costs of essential goods, including groceries. That requires a very strong consumer advocacy sector as well as timely and independent research on consumer issues. That is why our government is targeting enhanced support for Canadian consumers through additional investments in consumer advocacy work.
Yesterday I was talking about the value and the potential for more ombudspeople in the grocery sector to do research and conduct a bit of introspection with respect to why grocery prices are so high these days. Everybody seems to have a theory or some kind of an idea as to why grocery prices are inflated, but there are different reasons, and very complex reasons actually, because everything we shop for at the grocery store comes from somewhere else these days.
We announced in October 2023 that our government would be tripling our investment in Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada's contributions program for non-profit consumer and voluntary organizations. That program's funding was increased to $5 million annually. The additional funds are allowing organizations which advocate directly for the rights of consumers to examine existing and emerging business practices that can be harmful to Canadians, while also recommending actions to improve affordability, increase grocery competition and build on existing government efforts to promote and protect the interests of Canadian consumers.
It is absolutely and abundantly clear that grocery chains in Canada have taken advantage of consumers at various times. The very fact that we have an uncompetitive, consumerist and capitalistic approach to selling food, an essential item in this country, raises eyebrows. As somebody who grew up in non-profit housing, I have to wonder whether there is not more space for non-profit groceries. That is not to suggest that we would not support the workers in those stores, and we would certainly continue to support agriculture workers, farmers and food producers. However, there is a lot of value in removing profit from the essentials.
As a co-op kid, I never hesitate to talk about the value of non-profits. There is one non-profit organization in my riding about whose incredible work I would like to speak: Food for Life, a local charity and organization, a community-serving group that rescues food. In fact, it purchased a couple of refrigerated trucks with support from the federal government. That means that people from the organization can arrive at a grocery store they have contracts with, and before food comes off the shelf and goes into the landfill, the Food for Life experts go in and remove food from the shelves.
Food for Life is supporting the affordability for Canadians on two levels. One, the disposal of food costs grocery stores a lot of money, so they can actually eliminate that cost, which would be passed on to the consumers who shop at the store. Also, the organization is removing high-quality food that will not be sold for one reason or another. I have a lot of feelings about best-before dates. My partner and I often argue about what food has gone bad. I am the type of person who cuts a bit of mould off cheese, grates up the cheese and puts it on my pasta. It does not bother me too much. Perhaps my partner feels a bit differently about cheese mould.
Food for Life and the experts there do an amazing job rescuing food, putting it on shelves, packaging it, storing it and freezing it, and they actually have two free grocery stores. It always raises eyebrows when I tell people that my riding, my region, has two free grocery stores. Anybody back home listening can google “Food for Life in Halton”. People can drop by one of their grocery stores. They have excellent variety: fruit, vegetables, meat, bread and all the essentials.
All that the experts at Food for Life ask for is just a tiny bit of information, nothing terribly intrusive, just so they can continue to serve our community better. I am proud to say that I am a monthly donor to Food for Life. Anybody who is interested can examine the pathway of food waste and how we can redirect food waste toward people who really need it. I just want to stress that the invaluable, incredible work of Food for Life Canada in Halton is doing just that.
Let us go back to some of the projects that our government is funding to further explore barriers to grocery competition in the Canadian context. We have assisted in funding some studies that were completed by the Competition Bureau. It reported that existing barriers in the Canadian grocery sector context include “restrictive covenants” and “property controls”, and retail contracts that limit our control on how real estate is used by competing players in the grocery industry.
Our government is committed to reiterating our commitments to enhancing affordability for Canadians, as demonstrated by our investment through budget 2024. We understand the cost pressures that Canadian families are facing, and they often start with the price of food. That is why budget 2024 launched a national school food program in Canada, the first of its kind, and it will help ensure that more than 400,000 children have access to healthy meals and snacks, so they can remain focused on learning and growing while in class.
I have visited a lot of amazing school food programs. They basically do boxes where they take snacks out of packaging and create little hampers that go to the classrooms. That is to ensure there is a healthy snack available to any kid who might be a little hungry.
There are a lot of reasons a student might be a little hungry, or having a snack attack. It might be because they forgot their lunch at home. It might be because their banana got squished in their bag and they did not want to eat it. It could be because of time poverty; some families just run out of time. Sometimes we forget our lunch. Sometimes it is an affordability challenge and sometimes it is a time poverty issue. Sometimes it is a convenience issue. However, none of those reasons should get in the way of making sure a young kid or student has access to a healthy snack.
I want to give Halton Food for Thought a shout-out and Food4Kids Halton, as they are amazing organizations. The volunteers, the teachers and the parents who show up, and everybody who purchases food for or donates food to these programs, are all saints and I just want to say I appreciate them.
A national school food program will nationalize that and ensure that it does not always just rely on goodwill, donations and volunteers. We are going to ensure that all schools have access to it. It is definitely the case that schools in higher-income neighbourhoods tend to have more volunteers, and they often have more services. We do not want schools in lower, more modest-income neighbourhoods or communities to not have access to these essential programs.
I am really glad that our government is taking the extraordinary step of starting a national school food program. I think 400,000 kids is a lot of kids, and that is a great program and a great way to ensure that young people and students are not going hungry while they are in class.
Our government also believes that a lack of competition in Canada's grocery sector means that Canadians will ultimately pay higher prices to feed themselves and their families. We have actually seen that. It was not that long ago that Loblaw Companies sent out, in Ontario at least, those little $25 gift cards to anybody who went online and signed up. That was sort of its sorry for fixing the price of bread for over a decade. There was a big lawsuit and Loblaw basically said, “Sorry, we were fixing the price of bread. We will make amends by sending everybody 25 bucks.”
As sort of an act of protest, I spent my $25 at Loblaws. I remember doing that, but I think that did not really make up for the fact that it was working against customers. Where we shop is democratic: With our dollars, we want to support companies that have the best interests of their consumers in mind. I believe in customer service and I also believe that companies have a duty to respect their customers. It would be great to see more of that.
Let us go back to some of the significant efforts the Liberals have deployed to ensure that Canada's competition laws are fit for the modern economy. We have also brought forward important amendments to the Competition Act through Bill , and that is the affordable housing and groceries act. These amendments would give further enforcement powers to the Competition Bureau to prevent anti-competitive mergers and to address competition-stifling practices in large dominant players.
It is clear when there is not enough competition in a market. If there is only one store in a community, then it can basically charge whatever it wants. Even when there is more than one store, we can see some of the unfair corporate practices that target more vulnerable communities. Oftentimes, there is a smaller store, like a Shoppers Drug Mart or a convenience store, that is within walking distance to affordable housing. However, with some of the bigger stores, the more discount grocery stores, people require a vehicle to get to them.
In some of those smaller stores, we will see a higher price for the exact same item. I have seen it myself. A can of tomato soup is $2.49 at Shoppers Drug Mart, but if one goes to a No Frills, and it is on for $1.29. Both stores happen to be owned by the same company, so that is an unfair practice. I am not going to be convinced that the shelf cost of an item in one store versus another is actually double.
Finally, our government has made it a priority to maintain something called the food price data hub to give Canadians up-to-date and detailed information on food prices to help them make informed decisions about their grocery options. I am happy to elaborate on the food price data hub in a question.
:
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to participate in this debate on the NDP motion submitted by the hon. member for in relation to the price of essential foods and the conduct of grocery giants, such as Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys.
The proposed motion is timely, because by voting in favour of Bill last week, this House approved the latest initiative in the government's comprehensive modernization of the Competition Act. The relevant clauses were approved unanimously, showing the strong consensus here in this chamber on these issues.
The truth of the matter is that the government has been extremely active in promoting competition in all sectors of the economy, including in the grocery retail industry. It begins with resourcing. In budget 2021, the government increased the Competition Bureau's budget by $96 million over five years and $27.5 million ongoing thereafter. The increase in resources was a much needed boost to the bureau's capacity, and in its own words, “These funds enhance our ability to enforce the law and advocate for more competition. They help ensure we have the right tools to deal with Canada’s competition challenges now and in the future.”
Needless to say, law enforcement will not be effective if the enforcers are not able to carry out their tasks, and that is why this extraordinary increase was crucial to the bureau's functioning. The next step had to do with the legal framework under which the bureau operates, the Competition Act, which was aging and falling short compared to our international partners.
Through the 2022 budget bill, Bill , we took the first step in remedying this, correcting some of the obvious issues. This included criminalizing wage-fixing agreements, allowing private parties to seek an order for abuse of a dominant position and raising maximum penalty amounts to be based on the benefits of anti-competitive conduct. This ensures that sanctions would no longer be a mere slap on the wrist for today's largest economic actors.
The government knew, however, that much more remained to be done. Where the solutions were less readily obvious, the turned to the public process, launching a comprehensive public consultation on the future of Canada's competition policy. The process ran from November 2022 through March 2023.
In response to a consultation paper released by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, over 500 responses were received. This consisted of over 130 from identified stakeholders like academics, businesses, practitioners and non-government organizations.
While this feedback was being received, government officials also met with stakeholders in round table groups, allowing them to voice their views and to interact with each other as well. Stakeholders were not shy about sharing their opinions with us. They knew what sorts of outcomes they wanted to be delivered.
There was no shortage of proposals made, some highly concrete and detailed, others more directional in nature. What we heard, however, is that Canadians wanted more competition. Across many domains, the desire to strengthen the law, to enable the bureau to act and to align with international counterparts was evident.
Of course, many also expressed reservations about ensuring we get the details right and warned about overcorrection. The government took those to heart as well, taking inspiration from examples in other jurisdictions and recognizing the careful balancing that must be done when developing new legislation.
All told, the results of the consultation can be seen in two pieces of government legislation.
First, Bill , the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, was adopted in December 2023. It took some of the largest issues off the table. It eliminated the “efficiency exception”, which allowed anti-competition mergers to withstand challenge. It revised the law on abuse of dominant position to open up new avenues for a remedial order. It broadened the types of collaboration the bureau can examine, including those that are not formed between direct competitors. It established a framework for the bureau to conduct marketing studies, including the possibility of production orders to compel information. Work on this last amendment is already under way, as the bureau has announced an intention to launch a study into the passenger air travel industry.
Bill , the fall economic statement implementation act, 2023, is the second legislative effort following the consultation. As we know, it is currently before the Senate, and the government looks forward to its quick adoption. The amendments to the Competition Act that it contains are incredibly comprehensive. I will provide some of the highlights.
The bill makes critical amendments to merger notification and review to ensure that the bureau is aware of the most important deals and would be able to take action before it is too late. It significantly revamps the enforcement framework to strengthen provisions dealing with anti-competitive agreements, and it broadens the private enforcement framework so that more people could bring their own cases before the Competition Tribunal for a wider variety of reasons; in some cases, they could even be eligible for a financial award.
Bill also helps address important government priorities by making it harder to engage in “greenwashing”, which is the questionable or false representation of a product or a business’s environmental benefits. It facilitates useful environmental collaboration that might otherwise have been unlawful. It helps to make repair options more available for consumers by ensuring that refusals to provide the necessary means can be reviewed and remedied as needed.
Finally, overall, Bill makes a number of critical but often technical updates throughout the law to remove enforcement obstacles and make sure that the entire system runs smoothly.
I cannot overstate how important these measures are. The competition commissioner has referred to this as a “generational” transformation. It is by far the most significant update to the law since the amendments in 2009, following the recommendations of the competition policy review panel; arguably, it is the most comprehensive rewrite of the Competition Act since it first came into effect in 1986. Our world has changed since then, and it became clear that the law needed to keep pace to enable institutions that can oversee fast-changing markets and landscapes.
After the passage of Bill , we can guarantee that our competition law will work for Canadians in markets such as the one under scrutiny here, as well as the many other markets throughout our economy.
I am thankful for having been given the opportunity to share a few words.
:
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to rise in support of our NDP motion, which reads:
That, given that the cost of food continues to increase while grocery giants such as Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys make record profits, the House call on the government to:
(a) force big grocery chains and suppliers to lower the prices of essential foods or else face a price cap or other measures;
(b) stop delaying long-needed reforms to the Nutrition North program; and
(c) stop Liberal and Conservative corporate handouts to big grocers.
I am in support of this motion, because what Canadians are experiencing across the country, and in particular in my riding of Edmonton Griesbach, is truly heartbreaking. In my time in my community, I often speak to seniors, young people and those who are doing everything right, but they find that they are continuing to fall further behind. We know that the Liberals' consistent delay in action is truly costing Canadians, not just in their ability to feed themselves, but in so many ways, such as their dignity. On the Conservative side, they like to deflect from the point that corporations are gouging Canadians by reducing all of their fears, their woes and the reality of our economy down to slogans.
However, this is an immensely serious issue that is facing Canadians, and we must have the courage to call out corporations that continue to put this immense greed ahead of the very basic dignity of all Canadians. One in five Canadians is now skipping a meal. Food banks have never been used at the rate they are being used, in the last 35 years. As a matter of fact, the price of food has now reached over 20% of the cost in the last three years. We must be able to control the immense appetite of these corporations that have largely used the postpandemic period, this crisis that Canadians are facing, for their own particular benefit.
We do not have to look all that far in Canada's own history to see that private megacorporations always do the same thing when crisis hits. They jack up the prices. They force those who need those supports most, and they hurt them. They do that because their shareholders are not necessarily concerned about the outcome for regular Canadians. They do not have to ever feel the pain of people who have to look their child in the eye and know that they will not get a meal because they have given it to the child. They will not ever feel the pain of people who have to understand that they have to work an extra four hours and maybe miss the concert that their kids are putting on at school because they need that money to make ends meet. These stakeholders are completely absent of the realities facing so many Canadians, so they continue to jack up the prices, which go higher and higher, so much so that Canadians across the country have now galvanized together to boycott a megacorporation like Loblaws in order to seek their own justice. This is the kind of justice that government should be seeking. This is the kind of justice that these corporations should be subjected to.
Not that long ago, there was a terrible instance that found some of these megacorporations guilty of fixing the price of bread. It is shameful that corporations would fix the price of bread in order to make hand-over-fist profits. We need to have a level of accountability for these corporations.
In addition to this corporate greed, not only should these companies be held to account, but we also see that consecutive Conservative and Liberal governments continue to allow it, and also reward that level of greed. For example, when the Conservatives were in power, they gave $2.35 billion in corporate handouts to big grocery chains, which is shameful.
It gets even worse, because Canadians were promised, in 2015, a systemic change, that justice was going to come to Canada, but what we have seen is more of the same, as the Liberals kept that corporate handout. We do not have to look all that far in our own history. In 2019, for example, we saw a terrible instance where Loblaws needed refrigerators, and guess who paid for it: Canadian taxpayers had to pay for Loblaws' refrigerators. It is shameful. If Canadians had their refrigerators paid for them, imagine that. Imagine that cost alleviated in the household. No, Loblaws got access to a free refrigerator program costing millions of dollars.
These corporate handouts continue and continue, and the Conservatives spend all day trying to convince Canadians that they were never part of the problem, that they have not governed the country for half its existence and that for some reason the problems that we see from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and today were somehow avoidant of their legislation, avoidant of their priorities, avoidant of holding corporations responsible.
We often hear from the Conservatives that these nine years have been tough. Yes, they have been tough on Canadians. My God, they have been hard, but it did not just come from nine years. It came from generations of critically underfunding the social safety net that Canadians rely on.
The member of Parliament for speaks, for example, about the nutrition north program. The nutrition north program is so critical and important, so that we can get a basic level of dignity to those living in the north, but what we see is this complete, abject failure by the government to recognize the humanity of these people: relatives, family members, children, babies. There comes a time when we have to question whether systemic racism and the issues that plague the north are present in this issue, and I would suggest that they are, that Canada's own history of deep colonization has played a role in the direct underfunding of areas that are predominantly indigenous. We know that from the history of the Prairies, and we see that in the nutrition north program.
Canadians know that the problem is corporate greed. They know it. I will give an example, and I know the Conservatives will love this one, because I will talk about the carbon tax, their favourite thing to talk about. It is all they talk about all day. In my riding, we have a lot of hard-working individuals, people who own trucks. It takes a lot of money to run a truck. On April 1 of last year, the increased the carbon tax by 3¢. Conservatives say this is bad, but Danielle Smith increased it by 4¢ and that is not even with a rebate. As for the 13¢, though, who is getting the 13¢?
I tell those workers that they are getting gouged. They are getting gouged at the pump by those corporations that are making hand-over-fist profits, because, again, their shareholders demand it. They have never filled up their gas tank in their life. They would not even know the number, but Canadians do, because they are pinching every single dollar they have in order to make ends meet.
What we have is a government that is so out of touch that it is failing to recognize that corporate greed plays a role in this. Then it has its buddies, the Conservatives, to back it up on that and continue to deflect from the truth. That is why we have not heard whether there will be support for this motion. That is why no one wants to talk about corporate greed in this place. When New Democrats force a discussion, as we are today, it is imperative that we are honest with Canadians about the real cost of living and the crisis that contributes to it. When corporations are allowed to continue and continue to gouge, when they are allowed to just go unfettered by raising prices, like three apples for seven dollars, my God, that is unfair. When they are allowed to do that, with no penalty, they will continue.
That is why the bread-fixing scandal of the three major grocery companies is so important for us to focus on as a case study. When they collude together and set the price of bread so that they make maximum profits, and then no one on the Conservative bench mentions that crime and no one on the Liberal side mentions that crime, when is there going to be justice for Canadians?
I am proud to vote in favour of this motion, and I hope my colleagues do too.
:
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to speak to our NDP opposition day motion, calling on all parties in the House to stand with Canadians, to stand with us in the NDP, and push for measures to go after greedy grocery CEOs, lower food prices and reform nutrition north. Canadians are struggling. Costs are going up across the board. Nowhere is that more obvious than when it comes to grocery prices.
Grocery stores are out of control, and it is Canadians who are getting screwed. On top of it, wealthy CEOs like Galen Weston are raking it in, while Liberals ask them to meekly stop and Conservatives cheer them on. All the while, a couple of CEOs thrive as they live off public money, while northerners, indigenous peoples and all Canadians get screwed.
Over the last three years, the cost of food has increased by over 20%. Food bank usage is at a 35-year high. One in five Canadians is skipping meals. At the same time, the grocery sector made record profits in 2023, raking in $6 billion. It is an unfair system, and Canadians are paying the price.
Nowhere is this clearer than in communities across our north, especially ones that depend on the nutrition north program. Grocery prices in our north are routinely two to three times higher the cost compared to more southern communities. The profits of the largest grocery chain in the north, The North West Company, have gone up 10% since 2022. Its CEO earned just about $4 million in compensation in a single year, which is 98 times what his employees earned. With all those profits, it receives $67 million in subsidies through nutrition north. Are those savings being passed on to northerners? Of course not.
In fact, in larger communities with more than one store, corporate grocers pass only about 67¢ of every subsidy dollar on to consumers. In smaller communities with a single grocery store, greedy grocery CEOs are keeping 67¢ out of every dollar they should be passing on to consumers. The more isolated a community is and the less people have to spend the more they get gouged. It is unacceptable, and that is why we in the NDP have called for a public inquiry. However, we know that the Liberals and the Conservatives do not want to do that, preferring to keep northerners and Canadians in the dark.
This reality did not just happen. The corporate greed that we are seeing has been aided and abetted by successive Liberal and Conservative governments and their policies. It goes beyond food prices in our north. Canada is forcing first nations like Garden Hill, St. Theresa Point, Wasagamack, Red Sucker Lake, Oxford House, Gods River, God's Lake Narrows and others to live in forced isolation. Instead of working with Wasagamack to build a desperately needed airport, instead of funding all-weather road infrastructure for the first nations that need it, they are forced to rely on winter roads to ship everything in, including food. With catastrophic climate change shortening the window for these ice roads, a period in which things can be shipped in, things are only getting more expensive and only getting worse.
Northern and indigenous communities already have to deal with greedy CEOs' price gouging. Adding the collaboration of successive Liberal and Conservative governments, which refuse to fight to make their lives better, only increases people's struggles. The sad reality is that not one politician would tolerate these prices if he or she were the one who had to pay them.
We can be sure that if the lived in Norway House, a cereal box would not cost $17.99. If the lived in Wasagamack, a can of soup would not cost four times what it costs in Ottawa. If anyone here paid over $35 for a six-pack of canned salmon like people in Garden Hill do, he or she certainly would not be rushing to hand out $25.5 million to Loblaws and Costco over four years, like the Liberals did. We would not see the type of corporate coalition support that these successive Liberal and Conservative governments gave out, $2.35 billion in subsidies, to grocery giants if the deputy leaders of the Liberals or the Conservatives were paying $25 for a four-pack of Ritz crackers. No, it would be outrageous, and they would be helping people.
This is Canada, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where we are seeing this kind of unacceptable exploitation, deprivation and inequality grow. Indigenous and northern communities deserve better. Canadians deserve better. That is why this NDP motion is so important. It reflects what we in the NDP have been calling to happen for a number of years, which is much-needed reforms to nutrition north so indigenous and northern communities can afford healthy foods, lower the prices of essential food at corporate grocery stores and end the Liberal and Conservative handouts to big corporations.
Speaking of oligopolies and the unbreakable bond between successive Liberal and Conservative governments and the CEOs they cater to, I would be remiss if I did not bring up another corporation, Bell. We will find few Canadian companies that better exemplify this corporate arrogance than Bell Canada.
I have heard from the VP of Bell, Robert Malcolmson, a number of times since we in the NDP summoned the Bell CEO to come to committee on April 11 to explain why Bell cut 6,000 jobs and slashed programming in eight months. We held the CEO to account on behalf of Bell workers, on behalf of Bell customers and on behalf of Canadians.
Curiously, instead of getting to work to make amends with Canadians, Bell Media has been spending its time monitoring my social media and has chosen to send me a number of unsolicited letters that show just how much it does not get it. Let us be clear: It is a company that is an industry setter when it comes to tax avoidance. According to a report from Canadians for Tax Fairness, Bell used a series of loopholes and schemes to avoid paying over a billion dollars in taxes over a four-year period, ranking it as one of the 20 worst companies in the country in that regard.
In terms of corporate salaries, Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada's CEO, in 2023, earned $2.96 million in compensation, despite falling short of Bell's 2023 financial goals. Dividends to shareholders increased by 3.1% during this time. As always, it is workers who pay the price while wealthy CEOs profit.
When the CEO of Bell was at our committee, I confronted him about the reality in my constituency, where most people have little to no choice and have to look to Bell MTS for service. I pointed out how Bell bought out our once proudly publicly owned telecom provider, privatized by the Conservatives in the 1990s, Manitoba's MTS, and promised cheaper rates and better service. Instead, Bell shrunk the workforce and jacked up the rates, leaving many communities still waiting for that better service.
I raised two particular issues. One was the landlines in Dallas, Manitoba, that were not working reliably, forcing Susann Sinclair to communicate with her 89-year-old veteran father by walkie-talkie; landlines not working in 2024. I know for a fact that, following this exchange with the CEO, Bell MTS kicked it into high gear. It contacted Susann Sinclair repeatedly and, most important, it replaced the obsolete equipment servicing landlines in the Dallas area. It replaced it with new equipment that was sitting in storage. Finally, Susann's landlines have been working as they should.
Sadly, the VP of Bell refused to refer to any of that and has, in his two recent letters, incorrectly confused service issues in Bloodvein and Dallas. Bloodvein and Dallas are two different communities. They are not even close geographically. It is time for Bell executives to look at a map of our province and understand where their customers live.
Let us be clear that the service issue in Dallas was resolved, but not in Bloodvein. What is most surprising with my communications with Bell is its continuing refusal to take responsibility. When Bloodvein First Nation needed cellphone service during a wildfire for evacuation purposes, it was told by Bell that it would need to pay $652,000 to turn on a tower that was on its land.
In their letters to me, Bell disputed this even happened and referred to a temporary tower it put up. I was aware of that temporary tower, but the Bell executives got it wrong. It was not in Bloodvein; it was in Loon Straits to service natural resources fighting the fires. The signal did not reach Bloodvein at all. Three years later, and even after our April 11 hearings, Bloodvein still does not have cell service.
I make no apologies for fighting for my constituents. I make no apologies for holding to account greedy CEOs and executives who are making profits on the backs of first nations, rural communities, Manitobans, consumers across the country and workers who have been laid off.
I hope the grocery store CEOs, big oil and telecom giants at Bell Media and the rest are paying attention. Rest assured, we will be working hard to go after them, to go after the profits they make on the backs of Canadians. We will continue to bring the fight for an excess profit tax so they can finally pay their fair share.
While billionaires and CEOs know they can count on the Liberals and Conservatives, northerners, first nations people, people on fixed incomes and Canadians know they can count on us in the NDP to fight for them.
:
Mr. Speaker, I will start off by indicating that I do not want to come across as someone who is going to defend the big five grocers, whether it is Loblaw, Metro, Sobeys, Costco or Walmart. I do not think that they need any advocates on their behalf on the floor of the House of Commons.
I am genuinely concerned about the cost of groceries, and that is nothing new. It is something I have been concerned about for many months, or in fact, for the last number of years. It is a genuine concern. It is something the Government of Canada, in particular the , has been raising a great deal of concern about. It is not like it is something that has just happened over the last few months.
We can talk about there being issues related to groceries, even prepandemic, and the lack of competition. It is very real, and unfortunately, Canadians have had to pay a price for that. It is one of the reasons we have given it a considerable amount of attention.
Members will recall when the issue started to really heat up. The and the minister responsible were saying that we wanted to call on those big five grocers that, in essence, have about 80%, or maybe a little higher than that, of the market. It is an area we should all be concerned about. That is the reason they have been called before the government. That is the reason they have been called before a standing committee.
To try to give an impression, in any way, whether it is coming from the Conservatives, New Democrats, Bloc or anyone else, that the government is not concerned about the issue is just false. Over the last number of years, we have come up with thoughts, ideas and actions, whether they were budgetary measures or legislative measures, to try to hold them to account or ensure that there is a higher sense of transparency and more accountability in that area.
It is really quite encouraging to see that we have a House that is very much aware of the concerns Canadians have. One of the things that gets very little attention, which I want to highlight, is the food price data hub. It is something that has now been reinforced by the government. We want to make sure that Canadians are better informed about prices. Prior to the speeches today and the debate getting under way, I did a quick search on the food price data hub. I took a look at the province of Manitoba.
The food price data hub is complemented by Stats Canada. These numbers are fairly accurate. It provides an average price. Consumers can go there to get a sense of many different products and what they can expect for a cost. What I thought was interesting, because we are talking about the issue of inflation, was looking at some of the more common things.
For example, when we think of ground beef, and I am talking about in Manitoba, in November 2023, it was $11.22. It went up in December to $11.75, and dropped down to $11.10 in January and to $10.77 in February. Today it is at $11.37. Pork lion cuts per kilogram were $9.70 back in November, and I will just go right to March, when it was up by four cents.
A whole chicken per kilogram was $8.89 back in November, and it is actually down to $6.89. Chicken drumsticks, one of my favourites, I must say, were at $8.43 in November, and they went down to $7.96. When we talk about milk, a four-litre jug of milk was $5.72 in November and $5.72 in March. Butter was $6.29 in November and $5.99 in March. A 500-gram block of cheese was $6.65 in November and $6.59 in March.
The bottom line is that some of the prices have gone up and some of the prices have gone down. I like the general trend that we have been seeing in groceries, and I hope to be able to continue to see that trend. One of the commitments that the government made a while back now was to try to ensure that there is more price stability within the industry. That is something we want to see. It is one of the reasons we made significant changes to the Competition Act.
We often hear about the bread scandal. Many people following this debate today will have already heard it mentioned a couple of times. Members can imagine an industry that ultimately worked together to prop up the cost of bread. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional profit were made at the cost of higher prices for consumers. That took place virtually throughout the whole time period Stephen Harper was the prime minister. Ultimately, it ended up in the courts, and it was found that there was a price-fixing scandal within that industry. There have been hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties. We have to realize that, if the industry were left on its own, we would see a lot more price-fixing. One of the roles that government has is to ensure that there is competition.
I look at it from a past perspective. We did, at one point, have six major grocery outlets. We had Loblaw, Metro, Sobeys, Costco, Walmart, and Shoppers Drug Mart. A number of years ago, when Stephen Harper was the then prime minister, Loblaw acquired Shoppers. There were no questions asked, and it was acquired. Many people, including me, would argue that this diminishes competition, and by diminishing competition, ultimately, in situations like this, we are going to see prices potentially go up. There were no Conservatives who talked about that. Today, the Conservatives talk about competition in the grocery market, but back in the day, when they were in government, they did absolutely nothing at all regarding this. In fact, the Conservatives saw one of the grocery giants fall to be taken in by Loblaw.
We can look at the Competition Act and the way the Conservatives filibustered that legislation, trying to prevent the government from passing legislation. That legislation enhanced competition. It provided more resources for the Competition Bureau. By doing that, the Competition Bureau is able to conduct market studies. It is better able to do enforcement. It is better able to look at monetary penalties, and many of the maximum amounts were raised as a direct result.
Most important, from my perspective, is that the Competition Bureau put into place a merger review process that was not of the same nature. For example, it was the whole efficiency argument, where a store would be able to come before the Competition Bureau and say that, by doing this, it would become more efficient and therefore able to provide better prices and more options for Canadians. That argument was thrown out through the amendments that we made to the Competition Act.
These are the types of legislative actions that the government has taken to ensure that there is a better sense of predictability and stability in rates for groceries. That is a positive thing. I will contrast that with the previous administration, and it is a significant change. When Canadians were going through the pandemic, we started to really see it on the inflation graphs. When the rates were coming to the peak, the government responded by taking budgetary action. The government came up with the grocery rebate for Canadians.
The rebate assisted millions of Canadians by giving them extra disposable income because of the increase in grocery prices at the time. Whether it is through legislative actions or budgetary measures, members will find that the government, as a whole, has been very supportive of Canadians. I do think that is worthy of noting.
If we look at other aspects of the NDP motion today, it mentions that the Liberals, as a government, are giving these corporate bailouts, or giving hundreds of millions of dollars to companies such as Loblaw and Metro. It makes reference to Loblaws specifically. What the NDP members are referring to, to the best of my knowledge, are the two ways in which the government, under the , have subsidized groceries.
One of them is through the subsidies for the north, and the other one was more of an indirect one. The government came up with a series of policies dealing with emissions and the environment. One of those policies concerned the way products are refrigerated and the technology advancements in that area. We said that, if a company were to modernize, then the federal government would step up and assist with, I believe, about 25% of whatever the total cost of the project would be.
There were 50 or so applicants under that particular program, and one of them happened to be Loblaw. Loblaw took advantage of a government program to reduce emissions. The total amount spent was about $48 million, and $12 million came from the government, under that particular program to reduce emissions. That one project, from what I understand, was to reduce emissions. I will ask members not to quote me on this, but I believe it was the equivalent of taking thousands of vehicles off the road. It enhanced the opportunity for Canada to continue its leading role in the manufacturing of refrigerators. It created jobs, was better for the environment, and yes, Loblaw was one of many applicants. That is the program they are accusing the government of squandering tax dollars for. I beg to differ on that.
The other program I am aware of is support for northern Canada. Those northern supports are very real. When we take a look at the nutrition north program back in 2011, the budget was just over $50 million. Today, that budget is worth just under $150 million. That does not incorporate the community food programs.
On the one hand, in the very same resolution that is being proposed, the NDP is being critical of the Liberals for not supporting northern food prices, stabilization and reduction. They are also saying that we are supporting corporate greed. I mentioned the two programs I am aware of, and I am open to anything else that I might have missed. That is a question I would love to have answered.
When we think of the nutrition north program, it is a program that the Liberals greatly enhanced from a financial point of view with contributions. We have also looked at ways we can ensure that there are technological advancements, so we can see more community food programs put into place. By doing that, we are providing opportunities for northerners to potentially produce more food and become more diversified, if I can put it that way.
At the same time, we are looking at ways we can continue to support lower-priced food in the north through that specific program. We have also invested, with this budget, in local food infrastructure programs, again, to enhance the ability of non-profits, in particular, to generate that local food.
There are many initiatives that the government has taken to support the stabilization of prices, and we see the impact of that when we look at the numbers. The numbers clearly show that we are having a relatively positive impact. However, contrast that to what the Conservative Party is saying. With the first two Conservative members who stood up to speak about this important issue, I do not think they even talked about the issue of food security. All they wanted to talk about was what they were hearing from Jenni Byrne, who is a lobbyist, by the way, for the big grocery chains. The Conservative spin, no matter what is being debated, is that they have to talk about the axe the tax bumper sticker.
The Conservatives are not contributing to the debate or adding any sort of value to it. All they want to talk about is calling an election and axing the tax. I find it unfortunate because there is a whole lot more that we could be doing here in the House of Commons. As much as the Conservative Party wants to focus its attention on one issue, we will continue to look at ways we can enhance opportunities in many different sectors so that Canadians will ultimately see things such as stabilized food prices. We are already starting to witness that, not to mention the many different programs the government has been bringing forward, one of which I hope to talk about very soon, once we get into members' statements.
Suffice it to say that I appreciate the thought of talking about the price of food, but I think that the motion itself is somewhat misguided. I realize that I will get a little bit more time after question period, and I will provide some more thoughts on that issue when we resume debate.