Hon. Paula Simons: Thank you very much, minister. With regard to beef slaughter in Canada, 84% is done by just two companies — JBS Foods Canada and Cargill, two large multinationals. Cattle producers and consumers, thus, are captive to a market without competition. According to Alberta government data, prices for slaughtered cattle and calves in Alberta stayed almost unchanged between January 2021 and January 2022, but over the same period retail beef inflation in Canada rose by 15.4%, while beef consumption went into sharp decline.

Minister, while I understand there are no easy answers to increasing slaughterhouse capacity, what steps are your government taking to protect Canadian consumers and beef producers from this degree of corporate concentration?