SoVote

Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)

Jun/3/24 7:26:15 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the issue of the report is one that I believe we will be debating again soon. The challenge of exorbitant food prices is truly an international challenge. I was reading that in France the finance minister managed to secure—

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Context: House Hansard - 323 - Jun/3/24

Mr. Peter Julian

Jun/3/24 8:05:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the point. We do have a massive concentration of grocery chains in this country, and the response from the Liberal government has been to just ask them politely to stop gouging Canadian consumers. That is absolutely unacceptable and one of the reasons why I am so critical of the Liberal government in this regard. The minister of industry asked them politely, and it did not change anything at all. What it takes is action. Other countries have taken action by having an excess profits tax and by having an enhancement for competition, just as the member for Burnaby South, the leader of the NDP, has brought forward for the Competition Act, so that the Competition Bureau can actually take action against the rise in prices that are simultaneous and, obviously, in a very real sense, price-fixing. We saw this when it came to the great bread price-fixing saga. This happened under the Conservatives, and they did not take any action at all. The Liberals finally did. I will give them some credit for that, but the reality is that the cost of what was gouged, or stolen, was an average of $400 from every Canadian family. My colleague from the Bloc said we cannot say “steal”, but the price-fixing majors, the grocery giants, stole an average of $400 from every Canadian family. That was price-fixing. They raised the price of bread and they stole $400 from every Canadian family over the course of a number of years. That is theft. What it takes is a government that is willing to stand up to the grocery chains, willing to legislate against them and willing to implement those tools, including an excess profits tax and enhanced consumer protection legislation, and then basically telling the CEOs that unless they stop gouging people, the government will take action, as it has all these tools in place. We know that did not happen under the Conservatives. It has happened very rarely under the Liberals. What it will take is an NDP government that actually stands up for working people. We are prepared to do just that.

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Context: House Hansard - 323 - Jun/3/24

Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)

Jun/3/24 8:07:59 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I was just reading that in France, the government was able to force the 75 largest food companies to substantially drop their prices in the face of an unaffordability crisis like the one that we are facing here in Canada. However, what we have seen here is the government really going, cap in hand, to the big grocery chains and asking them, not even to reduce their prices, but just to stabilize them, which, frankly, the CEOs of these big corporations have laughed at. They have not lowered their prices. They have not even stabilized them. We still see food price inflation going up, and we see the cumulative effect of the inflation from the past number of years really hurting Canadians in their pocketbook. What does it say about the government that it is not able to force these companies to drop their prices?

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Context: House Hansard - 323 - Jun/3/24

Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)

Jun/3/24 9:09:29 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Milton mentioned some of the very real drivers of food price inflation, such as crop failures because of extreme weather, supply chain disruptions and international conflict. However, what we have seen is that, after some of those issues have resolved, after the supply chain starts moving again or the extreme weather subsides and the crops start growing again, the prices do not go down. They are quick to rise and very slow to fall. In fact, they do not fall at all. Does he agree that we need to see grocery chains lower their prices rather than what his leader, the Prime Minister, has called for, which is simply for them to stabilize? Does he agree we are at a place where Canadians cannot bear the current prices? We understand food price inflation has slowed, and that is certainly a positive trend, but Canadians are feeling the result of months of extreme inflation that has resulted in high prices that are not subsiding.

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