Evidence of meeting #89 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prices.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
Thank you. We'll now leave it at that.
Thank you, gentlemen.
You have two minutes, please, Monsieur Perron.
12:55 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I’ll try to be brief, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Lee, earlier you said that we need to eliminate barriers to competition or barriers to entry. In this regard, do you have a concrete recommendation to pass on to the Committee?
February 6th, 2024 / 12:55 p.m.
Associate Professor, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, As an Individual
Yes. My approach focuses on the macro, not the micro, and doing what's called indirect regulation rather than direct regulation. Let's bring that down to brass tacks and down to earth.
The Competition Bureau, which has correctly identified concentration, has not acknowledged fully that they have approved acquisitions over the last 10 to 15 years. I'm not here to throw rocks or bricks at the Competition Bureau because they're excellent people, but maybe they should, either through order in council or through amendments to legislation, put some kind of a notional cap on the concentration ratio.
When you get concentration ratios of up to 70%, 80% and 90%—and we have several industries there—we get real problems of lack of competitiveness. It's a direct consequence of such high levels of concentration. To put it the other way, the Competition Bureau is approving too many acquisitions.
1 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Mr. McCann, earlier you also made specific recommendations. Is it possible to pass them on to the Committee? Otherwise, you have about 20 seconds to explain them more clearly.
1 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute
I feel that a task force should be mandated to perform three tasks.
The first task would be to produce better data and analysis. That would allow us to better understand, for example, what impact the carbon tax has on food prices. That’s still an open question.
The second task would be to determine what is currently having repercussions and what the solutions are.
The third task would be to look at the issues of accessibility and affordability and try to find solutions, perhaps outside the food system, that might address the consequences of rising food prices.
1 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McCann, this committee has been involved in this study for quite some time, and I'm very thankful that I got the unanimous support of my colleagues when I proposed the original motion for the study. I think one of the great benefits of this study and the increased focus on food price inflation has been recent amendments to the Competition Act. Bill C-56 got unanimous support in the House of Commons. It's now part of the statutes of Canada. There are other provisions in Bill C-59 as well.
I put that in the context of your opening remarks about how sometimes we suffer from a bit of a data gap in Canada. Can you add any more to the conversation about these increased legislative powers for the Competition Bureau and what you hope they will result in, particularly now that the Competition Bureau has more legislative muscle when it comes to market studies and the ability to compel that information?
1 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute
Clearly, it will help better fill the gap that exists. Even the Competition Bureau report from last summer acknowledged their limitations and certainly didn't answer all of the questions that are there. I think it creates a lot of uncertainty around what exactly is happening and what we really understand. It's also important to understand, especially in a concentrated sector like retail, that there may very well be limitations to what they can make public at the end of the day.
This is a really small piece of the puzzle. It's interesting to think how things would have been 20 years ago had the Competition Bureau had these powers then. They didn't, so we are where we are. I think ultimately this is about an incremental or very marginal impact on the issue of food prices.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.
Colleagues, first of all, I would like to thank our witnesses on the second panel for being here and contributing.
To give you a sense of what we're going to be doing on Thursday, we were coming to the end of the number of witnesses that remained based on what you had submitted. In fact, the clerk had trouble, because all the witnesses had either been exhausted or a few declined or were unable to participate. However, we do have the Competition Bureau. They are coming for the first hour on Thursday. The second hour is going to be draft instructions to our analysts on what we've heard so that they can get a first report up. We're also going to look to adopt the subcommittee report and any other committee business that we feel is pertinent.
On the 13th, we intend to have the CEO from Costco, I believe it is. We are working to try to have Minister Champagne appear. It is not yet confirmed, but we are working on that. February 15 will be the first day of our horticulture study. The clerk is working on that.
We talked about doing Bill C-355 in the first hour of Thursday. Mr. Louis would like a little more time, but we'll make sure that we have him up, because that is a piece of legislation that this committee ultimately has to study as well.
That is our schedule until the February break. We will see all of you on Thursday.
The meeting is adjourned.