I'll address the comments in the order I heard them.
I understand the concerns about whether or not this particular issue belongs at the industry committee and whether the language should be tightened up a bit more. I would argue no. I think that this committee, in other studies, has dealt with things like the grocery code of conduct, which has come up repeatedly. You could argue that belongs at the industry committee. We have heard from witnesses like the Retail Council of Canada. We've heard from many organizations that represent grocers; they have appeared here.
Our committee's mandate is to follow food from the farm to the factory to the fork. If Canadians are having trouble accessing healthy, nutritious food because of the cost, that means something in our system is broken. I've read into the record an email. I'm keeping it anonymous because the person who wrote us said they fear reprisal if their name becomes public. I'm not going to read their name into the record, but I can tell you that it's a real email.
We have someone from in-house confirming what I'm alleging. We have a correlation between record net profits and high food prices for consumers. Yes, costs are going up across the line, but grocers are still able to make a high profit above and beyond those high costs.
I have the benefit of having in-laws who live in Australia. Australia's food market is dominated by two chains, and they have had news stories in previous years in which those food chains would announce the price that they would buy carrots at, for example. It was up to the farmers to try to match that price. These are total cutthroat business tactics. It goes to that point of farmers being price-takers. They don't always have the option. They have to try to compete at the price the grocer sets.
I would argue that this very much is within the mandate of our committee. I agree with Mr. Turnbull in that I don't think Canadians much care about specific mandates of committees. That aside, I think we do have a proper mandate here, but what Canadians care about is what they're seeing week in and week out. I think they need to see their parliamentarians respond to those very real concerns.
On Mr. Barlow's suggestion, I agree on Bill C-234. I think this is an important motion, but I know my Conservative colleagues have been waiting for a while on C-234, so I will agree with not upsetting the current order of things. As soon as that bill completes its journey here, I would like to see our committee embark on this study.