SoVote

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

Jun/4/24 4:31:46 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, nine months ago, the Prime Minister told the big grocery retailers that they had to stabilize prices or they were going to face consequences, such as taxation. It has been nine months, yet the result has been nothing. In France, where people are also suffering from massive food price inflation, the government managed to broker a deal with 75 of the biggest food companies that agreed to lower their prices, not stabilize them but lower them. The deal covers 5,000 different food products. I am just wondering whether my colleague could compare and contrast the two different approaches. Why do the French people seem to have a government that goes to bat for them and manages to force the big food companies to actually lower their prices, while here the Prime Minister simply asks politely and receives absolutely no action in return?

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Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24

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

Jun/4/24 4:51:23 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this afternoon and speak to the motion brought forward by my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford regarding food prices. The motion calls for something rather simple. It calls on the Prime Minister and the government to force the biggest grocery chains in this country to lower food prices or face consequences. There are a lot of statistics in front of us, which have been offered up over the course of this debate. Most people in our ridings, in the communities we represent, understand this issue intuitively. They do not need to know what the rate of food price inflation was over the past three years or precisely what the profit margin of the big grocery giants has been compared with historical profit margins. People are going to the grocery store in places such as Prince Rupert, Smithers, Kitimat and Terrace. They used to spend $100 on the two bags of groceries that they are buying, and now they are spending $120. They are wondering why. They are looking around, after the difficult years of the pandemic, and seeing that the biggest corporations in this country have been raking in massive profits, but their buying power has not increased. Their salary has not gone up. Their employer has not given them a 20% raise, yet every time they go to buy food for their family, they are paying 20% more than they did just three years ago. It is wrong. What the motion seeks to do is to take real action to ensure that those prices do not just stabilize but actually come down. The cost of food in Canada has gone up 21% in just three years. The grocery giants posted profits of $6 billion in 2023 alone. The margins since 2021 have been double what the historical margins were in the grocery sector between 2015 and 2019. It is fairly clear what has happened here. The big grocery giants have taken advantage of the conditions of the pandemic, when, for all sorts of reasons, we saw the cost of everything go through the roof. We have seen other factors drive food price inflation, things such as global conflict and extreme weather events. However, what we see is that the price of food goes up quickly, but when the price of the inputs goes down and those supply chain issues resolve themselves, when things get better, the price of food does not come down. Why would they lower the price of food when they can simply rake in more profits? That is why we need action from the government. Now, the government has acknowledged that there is a problem, but the approach has been to ask politely for these corporations to do something on behalf of consumers. It has been nine months since the Prime Minister called on the grocery retailers to stabilize prices or face the consequences. At the time, he mentioned taxation as a possible consequence of inaction. However, we have seen no action, and we have seen no consequences. I looked through the much-lauded grocery code of conduct. I think the average Canadian reading through this document would be hard pressed to see how its contents are somehow going to lead towards lower prices at the grocery store. In fact, in reading through the code of conduct, I only found the word “price” mentioned twice. We also did a search for a word; I believe it was “reasonable”. We found 12 mentions of it. This is a voluntary agreement that asks the parties, companies in the food supply chain, to be reasonable with each other. Somehow this is supposed to lower prices for Canadians. I do not think that is a reasonable assumption. We need action from the government. We have seen, around the world, that other governments have been willing to act on behalf of their citizens, to take more aggressive action with companies that are raking in unreasonable profits. We have been talking about the example of France. In France, the government stood up for people and told the biggest food companies in the country that the prices of the products they were selling were unreasonable. It required them to bring down the prices of 5,000 products, and if they did not do that, there were going to be consequences. It came to an agreement with the 75 biggest food companies in the country to lower the prices of those products. That is what a government that is serious about protecting its citizens from price gouging is able to do. However, in this country, the Prime Minister politely asks it of companies, over and over again, and reflects back to Canadians that times are tough, things are difficult, but he has done very little to lower prices. I want to talk for a moment about the distinction between stabilizing prices and lowering them. We have seen, as I mentioned, that the unreasonably high prices have stuck. Yes, food price inflation has declined in previous months, but those prices are still at a level that Canadians cannot afford to pay. The margins are still at a level that is far in excess of what they have been historically. We need the price of food products to go down so that people can finally afford the groceries they need to feed their families. I mentioned the example of France. Greece has also taken steps to tackle food prices in a more aggressive way. South Korea has intervened on behalf of its citizens. Clearly, there are things that the government could do. This motion simply urges the government to take aggressive action, to say that enough is enough and that it is not going to ask politely anymore. It needs to require these companies that are raking in massive profits to lower the prices of their products for all Canadians. I think everyone accepts that we live in a market-based economy, where, for so many things, the price is set as an agreement between a willing seller and a willing buyer. That is a premise that most folks in the House accept, but there are also some things in our society for which we have said that we are not willing to solely allow the market to dictate the price of things that people need. When it comes to rent, most provinces in this country have controls on rent increases because, in the past, they have seen the cost of rent increase year over year, to the point where people simply cannot afford basic housing. The same is true with energy. We know that people need to be able to afford energy to heat their homes. In British Columbia, the price of energy is regulated so that people can have some sense of certainty when it comes to the cost of electricity. The government has intervened on behalf of consumers and said that, for certain things, it is not going to let the free market dictate what we pay. Of all the basic things that people rely on, one would think that food would be something the government would intervene on and say is non-negotiable. We simply cannot have a free-for-all when it comes to the prices people are paying for basic groceries. Everyone accepts that retailers should be able to make a modest profit as part of their business, but the profits that we have seen are not reasonable. The price that people are paying for food in this country is not reasonable. Therefore, we are urging the Prime Minister to step in and, despite his cozy relationship with these companies, be firm with them and establish what the consequences are going to be. He needs to look to these other countries around the world that have had some success in driving down the price of food and deliver food price reductions for Canadians in the short term. That is what is being asked for here. It is a very reasonable demand that every Canadian can get behind, and I hope everyone in this place supports the motion we have put forward.

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Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24

Mr. Taylor Bachrach

Jun/4/24 5:01:36 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I agree wholeheartedly with my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands. Some of these factors are unavoidable unless we change our food system and change the supply chain to localize it and make it more resilient. We are going to see the impacts of extreme weather around the world drive up the price of food. I think we have all seen news articles that have clearly documented this effect. What we are talking about here is what happens once those food products get to our country from where they are grown to the shelves they are bought from. What we are seeing is that certain companies are taking advantage of a situation, marking up the products by unreasonable amounts and raking in record profits on the backs of Canadians. That is what has to stop. We can do both things at the same time. We can make our food system more resilient and address the clear price gouging and excess profit-taking that we are seeing in the grocery sector.

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Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24

Mr. Taylor Bachrach

Jun/4/24 5:03:20 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, while the numbers I have show that France has seen a 21% increase in food prices in just two years, in Canada we have seen food price inflation of more than 20% in three years. Maybe there is a slight difference there, but what we are talking about is unreasonable food price inflation. Whether it is 20%, 30% or 15%, we are talking about food price inflation that is far in excess of the overall rate of inflation. When we dig into the numbers, we see massive profits, which have grown substantially, and that is because companies are taking advantage of a situation. I think everyone accepts that companies are going to pass along their increased costs to consumers, and sometimes those increases are inevitable. However, what we are seeing in this case is profit-taking that is not inevitable, but a conscious choice being made by these CEOs to take advantage of consumers, and that is wrong.

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Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24

Mr. Taylor Bachrach

Jun/4/24 5:05:29 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives continue to pluck away on this one-string banjo about the carbon price and its effect on what they say is the price of everything. There is a small impact. People have dug into these numbers and there is actual evidence as to the impact of the carbon pricing on things such as food. Professor Trevor Tombe from the University of Calgary looked into this and found that the overall impact is about 0.3% per year. We saw with grocery prices, at the height of it, that it was around 11% per year. At 0.3%, it would mean that, if a bag of groceries goes up a dollar, that is an infinitesimally small amount. A third of a cent on that dollar would be the impact of the carbon tax. I think we need to keep things in perspective. It is not that there is no impact, but when we look at the profits these companies are raking in, the effect of that on the prices that people are paying is dozens of times higher.

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