Agriculture Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

[Pierre Riel]

Was there anything new? We've been doing this every day since our founding. It's part of our original concept.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

So there was nothing more to add in response to the request from the minister. I want to address this.

We're meeting with you for the second time. We already carried out a study and drew some conclusions, such as the need to introduce a code of conduct. We then started the process again at the request of the minister. He wrote a letter to the committee asking us to meet with you and check whether you tried to lower prices in response to his request.

You're basically saying that you already lower prices as much as possible, that you can't do anything more and that you're carrying on as usual. Is that right?

[Pierre Riel]

Exactly. That's our business model.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Okay.

[Pierre Riel]

We couldn't sell membership cards if our prices matched our competitors' prices.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

So the initiative taken by the minister hasn't changed anything in your case.

[Pierre Riel]

I can't say that the initiative hasn't changed anything. I think that it brought the group together and raised awareness.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

It has shed some light.

[Pierre Riel]

That may be the case for some people. However, I'm sticking to my role.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Okay.

You said earlier that a code would need legislation to work. Did I understand what you said to the other members? For a code to work, if not everyone adheres to it, legislation is needed. With legislation, you will—

[Pierre Riel]

No. I didn't say that legislation would be needed. I said that it would be much better if everyone were on the same page. I don't know whether forcing people will achieve anything.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I understood you correctly. I'm glad that I asked the question.

Ms. Rood spoke earlier about plastic use. This issue ties in with the topic at hand.

Costco's packaged goods often have multiple layers of plastic. Do you have a task force working on trying to reduce packaging? Can you take 10 seconds to talk about this?

[Pierre Riel]

We're indeed reducing the use of plastic. I'll give you an example. Roast chicken used to be packed in a plastic dome. Now it's packed in a recyclable bag. We're significantly reducing the use of plastic. The chicken that used to be packed in a plastic dome was transported on full pallets to avoid being crushed. The chicken is now packed in a bag, and this bag will be available worldwide. I've seen this packaging at Costco in Taiwan, and now it will be available worldwide.

These examples show that we're reducing the use of plastic. We must make this extra effort.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Riel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. MacGregor, take us home.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I think, Mr. Riel, it's safe to say that Canadians are quite hyper focused on the price of food these days, and we do have some worrying statistics in Canada showing the extremely high rate of food bank usage and so on.

Recently, Loblaw, in that environment with the hyper vigilance, tried to eliminate the discounts that are applied to fresh food that is going to expire soon. I think their plan was to reduce it from a 50% discount to a 30% discount. They said they were following what some of their competitors were doing. That provoked widespread outrage, and they were forced to climb down.

I'm just wondering, what is Costco's policy on that, on fresh items that may be close to their expiry date? What's your discount policy?

[Pierre Riel]

There's no discount policy. When it's close to the date, we give it to the food bank or to an association for pickup. Everything in the bakery that still has a day left, it's picked up before the expiration, and so with that, it's still good to eat. That's what we do. We're giving tons of merchandise on a daily basis across Canada.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Do you have an opinion on what might have prompted Loblaw to have made that decision in that environment, given the hyper focus that many Canadians have?

[Pierre Riel]

Again, Mr. MacGregor, I'm here to talk about Costco.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Okay. Fair enough. We'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Riel, I just want to ask one question.

You mentioned that in Australia it's a voluntary code. You've talked about the code of ethics that you have in terms of how you deal with your suppliers, and I can appreciate that. Was it the view that the code of ethics that Costco has was superior to the code that was put in place in Australia? What would have prevented Costco if you already have really strong ethics in that regard...was it to not join a voluntary code just because of the view that you already have a lot of those strong principles in place? Was there something—

[Pierre Riel]

I think that in Australia, you know, when that was established, we were probably in about 10 locations, so our size of business was not as big. I think that with what we were already doing in Australia with our vendors and everything, the need was not there.

When the need will come, if we believe that, then we're going to have to look into it. At this point, there doesn't seem to be a need there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

In Canada specifically, I appreciate you would have more than 10 stores. You were rhyming off a number of the locations you have across the country, and I know you have some in Nova Scotia. I appreciate that you haven't been part of the discussions, so you don't have the actual text of the code that is being contemplated, but—

[Pierre Riel]

We did receive some texts, you know—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Okay.