Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to Mr. La Flèche, Mr. Medline and Mr. Weston for being here today.
I don't have all the emails printed out from the constituents with the concerns I've received, as I'm a bit of an environmentalist. My question will really be about the impact this has had on consumers and on your employees—or “team” members, as you like to call them, Mr. Medline.
Again, I won't go through all the facts and the data given on how your profits have risen, because I think you recognize that. It's also been pointed out many times. However, you talk about reinvesting those profits and you talk about building more stores. We've seen that there have been increases in dividends to shareholders.
While I don't fault corporations, having a business background, for maximizing shareholder value, I would think that at these times you could be reinvesting profits in different ways that might benefit Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet and to help those team members who work so hard on the front line. One thing we noticed was that the hero pay was reduced by basically all grocery stores at the same time, and the freeze on No Name products was removed. This was in the face of growing profits.
I'm wondering how these complaints or these concerns from our constituents, from Canadians, in the face of your growing profits can be reconciled with those facts, and what you can do to address those concerns.
Mr. Medline, perhaps you can start.