44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 4, 2024 10:00AM
- Jun/4/24 10:16:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am totally on side with the motion, but it is a matter of the what and the how.
What we want to do is see food prices moderate or come down. With respect to how, though, I want to talk about the price cap and ask my hon. friend a question. The free market response to a price cap quite often ends up being rationing. What would the response be if big grocery decided that we were forcing them to sell milk, eggs, butter, etcetera at a low price, so they were not going to make a whole bunch of those things available to people? Are there thoughts, or could there be thoughts, on how to deal with that issue?
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- Jun/4/24 10:19:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I understand the motion's underlying intent. The rising cost of groceries is affecting everyone and causing a lot of headaches, but I wonder whether a price cap is feasible.
For example, how are we supposed to cap the price of bread when wheat prices are determined by the Chicago Board of Trade exchange? How can we cap the price of fresh vegetables when we know that soaring prices primarily reflect crop losses caused by floods and droughts resulting from climate change? I wonder how practical it is to force a produce farmer from California to sell his broccoli to Quebeckers and Canadians at a lower cost than he would charge Americans.
Can my colleague tell me how this would be done in practical terms?
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- Jun/4/24 10:35:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we should do something pre-emptive here, because when it is time for the Conservative Party to speak on this, I anticipate an attack on supply management. We have seen that from some Conservatives. We have seen it from Conservative media commentaries.
Does the NDP support supply management and will it rebuff any attempt to blame high food prices on this measure?
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- Jun/4/24 10:59:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, contrary to what the opposition member just said, the State of California does have a price on pollution. However, that is not the question I have for the member.
At the end of the day, we take a look at the cost factors, inflation rates and the impact that these things have on society. We want to see food prices stabilized. Ultimately, people need to have comfort in knowing that the government is acting on their behalf.
We brought in the Competition Act, which the member made reference to; this is one way in which we can ensure that we are having more stabilization of food prices. Could he just expand on why it was important to make changes to the Competition Act?
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- Jun/4/24 11:49:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, of course, giving customers more information means giving them a tool that allows them to do the best they can. However, given the state of competition in Canada, this information will let consumers see they are being gouged and paying too much.
We can go ahead and create all sorts of databases and give the price range for a grocery item on a portal, but if the lowest price on the portal is still too high, that means there is a competition problem. Adding a tool to diagnose the problem will not necessarily solve the problem. We have to address the lack of competition, make Canada attractive for investors and make it possible for the commissioner of competition to do his work freely and with fewer barriers.
I think that, after that, if the hon. member for Winnipeg-North develops his database, he will notice a drop in prices.
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- Jun/4/24 12:02:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am always happy to listen to my colleague.
The French government forced big companies to lower prices on approximately 5,000 grocery items. This approach was copied by South Korea and Greece for other tools and other measures.
Does my colleague agree with what the NDP is proposing today, namely the approach of using government measures and tools to lower the price of essential foods and forcing companies to lower their prices, like France, Greece and South Korea did?
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- Jun/4/24 12:03:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not wish to repeat everything I already said, but in my remarks, I highlighted several completely unrealistic aspects concerning prices that have nothing to do with public will, but rather result from all sorts of factors, including wheat prices, which are determined in Chicago, or vegetable prices, which are going up because of climate change. There are plenty of similar examples to show that, all in all, this proposal is unrealistic. The problem, unlike in South Korea or France, is the concentration in our grocery sector. That is the real issue. It is concentrated among a handful of grocery giants.
My colleague's proposal consists of putting in place an interim, temporary solution because the situation has reached alarming levels and something has to be done. All right, but if we do that without attacking the structural, central, permanent problem, which is the growing monopolies in this sector, there will always be a problem with prices, unless the proposed price cap is permanent, which no one seems to be suggesting today.
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- Jun/4/24 12:04:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I suspect the issue of caps has a lot to do with the supply end and with the end result. My question to the member is in regard to the idea of enhanced competition. We did have six large grocery companies. Shoppers was the last one that folded into Loblaw. In part, that sent a very strong message in itself, and it was one reason we had to change and to modernize the Competition Act.
I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts on the important role that the Competition Act and the commission play in ensuring that there is stability in prices.
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- Jun/4/24 1:37:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues mentioned earlier in their analysis of the NDP motion, it is targeting a genuine problem but proposing a false solution. How would we cap the prices of essential foods?
I would like my colleague to tell me how the price of bread can be capped when wheat prices are negotiated on the Chicago Stock Exchange.
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- Jun/4/24 3:45:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree that this government has failed to take the measures needed to deal with the climate crisis. We used our leverage over this minority government to force it to take measures that it never would have taken otherwise.
I also want to point out that the main reason why grocery prices are so high is actually price gouging on the part of these grocery giants.
In our motion today, we are proposing a plan to lower prices, because people in Quebec and across Canada are struggling. It is more difficult than ever to buy groceries. That is why we are calling on the government to take measures as urgent as this crisis. We are asking grocery giants directly to lower the prices of essential foods or face a price cap.
I also want to mention that France has a similar plan. It took a similar approach and forced the country's grocery stores to lower the prices of essential foods, and it succeeded.
We want to do the same thing here, because people need urgent measures.
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- Jun/4/24 4:32:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be quick because that was an important question. I know the question of food prices right now is a top-of-mind issue for all Canadians. I want to remind my hon. colleague that the Prime Minister was asking retailers, and working with them, to try to stabilize food price inflation, which has happened. Food price inflation has stabilized; that is true about the inflation piece.
Are the prices too high for some average Canadians? Absolutely. I think that raises the question of why the NDP would present a motion here today that would have absolutely zero support for Canadian farmers. How does it think we are going to get to lower prices? Yes, of course we can put in measures to try to help push major retailers, but we also have to try to lower costs for farmers and make sure that there are initiatives in place.
I want to just address the example of France. The French government has huge interventions in the entire supply chain of the French agriculture community. If we want to go down that route, we can, but the member is truly comparing apples to oranges because of the dynamic of how the French agriculture sector works. I would be happy to discuss with him further after this.
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- Jun/4/24 4:45:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have talked a great deal about trying to establish food stability in terms of prices. It is interesting when we look at the G7 countries today, in terms of the graphs. We find that the highest is Germany, followed by the United Kingdom and France. France is the country that is often cited by the New Democrats. Next is Italy and then comes Canada. The lowest two are the United States and Japan. Again, we fluctuate within that graph.
The concern I have is that, first, we need to achieve stabilization and to look at ways in which we can keep down food prices as much as we can. Having said that, the New Democrats are implying that we should be looking at putting in a price cap. Is the member concerned about the issue of supply and the impact it would have on the producers?
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- Jun/4/24 5:03:20 p.m.
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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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- Jun/4/24 5:05:29 p.m.
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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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