Agriculture Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Riel, for appearing today.

I'm going to continue to thank you for your knowledge of the status of the grocery code of conduct in Australia and the U.K. We had another retailer appear at this committee who professed no knowledge of the workings of the code in other jurisdictions, which I must admit I found rather incredible. I appreciate your knowledge in sharing that.

If I understood...from your testimony, Costco is obviously a member of the U.K...and participates?

[Pierre Riel]

No, we're not. We were not asked to be a part of it. In the U.K., we're working under a licence called a commercial licence. We're more dictated by the trade business. To be able to operate stores we need to have a trade licence, which is a different approach.

Everybody who does £1 billion or more in sales is the way they are selected in the U.K. The last one to come in was Amazon, and a couple of others, which we were not asked to do.

Our code of ethics applies in every country we do business. For us, the principles are there. I think that if somebody—a vendor—will think that we need to be there, they will probably do what they have to do to force us to get there.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I also heard from your testimony that in Australia, where it is a voluntary code, you are not participating.

[Pierre Riel]

We are not, because—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] the same code.

[Pierre Riel]

Yes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Right.

You were quoted in an article on April 17 of last year as saying that you would participate in the code if the goal of the code was lower consumer prices. The experience from the U.K., with the existence of a code, has been exactly that.

Would you stand by that statement from about a year ago?

[Pierre Riel]

You know, I'm standing by the statement that if it will help the consumer, but I think there's a little thing we need to add to the statement here: We need to define that code.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Right.

[Pierre Riel]

We don't have that yet. Everybody's talking about a code with a lot of things, and it's not done yet. It's very tough sitting in my seat and saying I'm for it when we don't know how the disputes will be fixed. We don't know who will participate. We don't know if the multinationals will be in. There are things that need to be done prior to a decision being made.

That doesn't mean we're against the principle. Absolutely we're for the principle of the code, because that's what we do in our code of ethics, but there are things that need to be defined. When they are presented to us, we will look at it. If it makes sense, we will say yes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I will circle back to the multinational issue that you raised. Do you find that your experience with vendors to be different on the basis of vendor size? Do you find the relationship with vendors to be more cantankerous or more difficult or more friendly with larger or smaller vendors?

[Pierre Riel]

I think it's like a lot of things in life—there's something different in everything. I have to say that if you treat people well and you are respectful in negotiating, then any vendors will recognize that.

At the end of the day, you're dealing with human beings. You're not dealing with the name of a company. There's no name of a company without the people inside it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

I'm sorry. I have to stop the clock for a second. We might have had a slight slip in translation....

Go ahead, Mr. Epp. It's back to you.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

[Pierre Riel]

To me, that's the thing. When respect is established between vendors, then the size of the vendor doesn't matter.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

So you would not see the need to carve out exemptions on the basis of vendor size. I'm hearing you call for participation by vendors as well as retailers. Am I correct?

[Pierre Riel]

Yes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Is that irrespective of the size of the vendor?

[Pierre Riel]

I think so.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

In terms of U.S. versus Canada and the level of competition, would you say that you face a similar amount of competitive pressures from your competitors in the U.S. versus in Canada? I'm talking about the retail landscape.

[Pierre Riel]

At Costco the concept is different, because we sell a membership. In the U.S. there are other member clubs. In Canada there was one and it's no longer here. In other countries you also have other ones. If you compare membership clubs, there is more competition in the U.S.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Right.

[Pierre Riel]

If you compare the number of groceries, this may be a little bit more, but there's a lot more population. It depends on which state you are in and in which area you are.

I don't spend a lot of time there, because I've been travelling the world, but I've been in Seattle for the last two years. There is competition in Seattle like there is competition in Toronto. In those massive cities, there's massive competition. There are more stores because there's more population.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

What advice do you have for this committee? Are you participating in the code discussions right now?

[Pierre Riel]

No.