Agriculture Committee on Nov. 20th, 2025

[Rhonda Maines-Corrado]

It's challenging to give an opinion of or thoughts on an oversight body without further details and a better understanding of what that would look like.

With the current structure that we've been working on for a voluntary code, as it has been mentioned, a lot of work has been put in over the past few years on a collaborative effort throughout the industry to develop it. While it is not necessarily clear how it will work out, it will be important—

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

It wouldn't be in the code, Ms. Maines‑Corrado. It would be a separate thing, parallel or complementary to the code. It could bring more transparency to the industry and protect suppliers.

[Rhonda Maines-Corrado]

This would be separate from the code. The code itself is about principles of fairness and transparency, so the voluntary code should be given an opportunity, I believe, to be put into practice to see how it plays out once it's implemented.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

I'd like to say thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us here today. We're going to stop now. We appreciate your time.

To the committee, we're just going to take a small break to prepare for our next witness. If you can stay in the room, we'll try to do this as quickly as possible.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I call the meeting back to order.

For the next 20 minutes, we have Ms. Proud joining us. Thank you for coming.

I'll skip the speech I usually give at the beginning, because you've been here many times. You know what those recommendations are. We'll go right into it.

You have up to five minutes to present, and then we'll open it up for five minutes each from each of the respective parties.

[Karen Proud, President and Adjudicator, Office of the Grocery Sector Code of Conduct]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me back as part of your study on the grocery sector code of conduct. I'm starting to feel quite at home here these days.

Since I last appeared, the office has made substantive progress on the dispute resolution management process. We now have a very solid final draft that reflects extensive input from across the sector and is currently moving through the approval process. With this progress, we remain on track for full implementation on January 1, and we hope to be in a position to launch our formal recruitment early in December.

I have listened intently to the testimony before this committee, and one message that has come through very clearly relates to concerns about confidentiality when raising issues with the office. The imbalance of power in parts of the supply chain is very real, especially for farmers. We count on them to grow the food that feeds this nation, yet they often operate with limited commercial leverage. Ensuring they have a trusted avenue to bring forward concerns is critical to the effective functioning of the code, and we have taken these concerns very seriously.

Although the DRMP plays an important role, it is designed, much like the formal arbitration system in the United Kingdom, to be used only when the other earlier avenues cannot resolve an issue. By design, it is a bilateral process between two parties to a specific commercial relationship and cannot accommodate class action-style complaints. It is also not confidential between parties, which may make it challenging for some producers to pursue this.

For these and other reasons, it is important to highlight that the DRMP is not meant to be the starting point for most issues. That is precisely why the office has created additional mechanisms that are intended to be used when code-related issues first arise. These confidential and systemic pathways allow members and their associations to raise concerns confidentially, and they allow the office to engage directly with companies to clarify issues, promote understanding and support voluntary alignment with the code. This reflects the U.K. experience, where the vast majority of concerns are resolved through confidential engagement, not through formal arbitration.

We recognize the need for stronger engagement with primary producers, and we have begun exploring options to enhance our interactions with producers and their associations within the legal constraints that we must respect. These approaches are aimed at improving dialogue, strengthening trust and ensuring that producers have effective and trusted avenues to surface their concerns. We will be consulting directly with producers and their associations as this work progresses, and we will report in our annual reports on what is working well and what may need adjustments as we gain experience with the code and the systems we have put in place to support its implementation.

Our model remains closely aligned with international best practices. The emphasis on confidential early engagement, systemic issue tracking and transparent follow-up reflects the U.K. experience, where these tools have helped improve commercial conduct and build supplier confidence over time.

I want to thank this committee for its sustained focus on the agriculture sector and the realities facing farmers. Your attention matters. For a voluntary code such as ours, parliamentary oversight reinforces the importance of fairness, transparency and accountability across the supply chain.

As implementation moves ahead, I would encourage the committee to continue to monitor our progress, and I would welcome the opportunity to return once again, once the code has been in place for some time, to report back on how it is functioning in practice.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

I will start with Mr. Barlow from the Conservatives for five minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have just one question, and then I'm going to cede my time to my colleague, Mr. Epp.

Ms. Proud, thanks again for all the work that you've done on shepherding this to where you have, but I do think it's a legitimate concern with the grocery code of conduct that two years ago, the now Minister of Finance said he had five distinct tools he was going to be using to lower food prices, and that if food prices weren't lowered, he was going to take additional action. Those were his words.

One of those tools was to tell Canadians that once the grocery code of conduct was implemented, food prices would be lowered. We've heard from every single stakeholder, including you, that this is not the case. I'm worried that this is going to erode confidence in the grocery code of conduct when it's implemented—that Canadians are going to be expecting to see lower food prices, and it's just not going to happen.

Have you had conversations with the government to communicate this fact to Canadians—that this is not what the grocery code of conduct was intended to be—to ensure that there is confidence in the code, not only from your members but also from consumers?

[Karen Proud]

One of the key roles of the office is to ensure that people are aware of what the code is and what it isn't. We in the office have been communicating as much as we can about the code through the media and through other means, including our website. We have government officials who sit on our board of directors as observers.

I think that a lot of clarifications are needed with regard to the code—not just about whether it impacts food pricing, but how the code works generally.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I'll pass my time to Mr. Epp.

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

Thanks. It's good to see you again.

I want to pick up on the point from your testimony around confidentiality. The need for confidentiality, obviously, comes from the risk of intimidation and things like that.

Just for the record, I know that the vendors I communicate with are not just smaller producers with a size difference; a number of these vendors are actually dealing in nine figures of sales volume.

Would you agree that this is a factor even for companies that deal in the hundreds of millions of dollars?

[Karen Proud]

Absolutely. I have heard concerns about confidentiality from virtually every company that I have met with. It was the same situation in the U.K. Nobody spoke to the adjudicator in her first six months to a year in office when they started the code, because they were concerned about confidentiality.

That is why we have put in place in the office processes by which people can report issues to us in confidence. Their names will never be released, but we can still do our job and work with companies to address issues related to the code.

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

I'm going to go back to an issue I raised in the earlier round of testimony.

I have had conversations with vendors right now. I'm so glad to see that finishing line so close, but I have had allegations of the intensity of negotiations and changes in timing from multiple retailers because of the January 1 deadline.

Is any of that coming into your office?

[Karen Proud]

I've heard, anecdotally, concerns within the sector with behaviours that may not be code-compliant.

We take all that information in—whether companies are members or not—to see what's going on in the environment. When we have members that come on board, part of our job in the office is to talk to them about how they are adapting their processes around the code, similar to questions that they've had today. I will do the same thing.

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

The avenue, let's say, if some of those came into the office on behalf of either producers or food manufacturers.... If I understand correctly, step number one is education. Would you go back to the individual retailers, or would you work through the RCC, the Retail Council of Canada?

What would be your thought process in addressing allegations that may be affecting more than one retailer?

[Karen Proud]

With our process, if the office is hearing from an individual or an association that is bringing an issue of concern related to the code to us, the first thing we do is see if we can verify whether that's a code-related issue, because there are lots of things, like pricing, that don't fall under the code.

We would gather as much information as we could on what exactly the issue is. Then our job—and this is my day job—is to really work with the company in question to talk to them about behaviours, processes or policies where we feel there might be a concern with regard to the code.

At that stage, we're not opining as to whether there's a code violation or no code violation. It's really about education to see if companies are aware of what's going on, if they have a good rationale for that, and whether there's a code-related issue. Then we start building the narrative and the discussion to try to then effect change if it really is a code issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

Next, we'll go to MP Chatel for five minutes.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will share my time with my colleague, Ms. Dandurand.

I have a question for you, Ms. Proud. Could small producers have their association represent them and get help from your office, if they wanted to file a complaint regarding a systemic issue but didn't want to go through the dispute resolution process?

[Karen Proud]

Thank you. My headset was not working, but I believe I understood your question.

There are really two pathways for a producer to access the support of the office without having to go through the formal dispute resolution process. They can go through our confidential portal, where they can input all of their information by themselves and report their issues to us, or they can go to their industry trade association, which can bring the issue to us, also in confidence. There are ways they can work with their association.

The importance of the associations is that they can get information from many of their members. They can really highlight for the office those big, systemic issues—not the one-offs, but the things that are affecting their entire industry.

We encourage our members and the producers to go through their association, so their association can bring it to us. We would operate in the same way. If we received information from an association, we would verify—we'd go through a process of trying to get more information—and then we would take the issue to the other party to see if we can resolve it outside of a formal dispute.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'll leave the floor to my colleague.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

Is the resolution process for systemic issues you're talking about already in the code? Is that written somewhere, or is it a project you're working on?

[Karen Proud]

This process of systemic issues is our day job. As for the dispute resolution, the formal process, we had to create a process, a procedure for how we deal with it.

The systemic issues are how we operate on a day-to-day basis. We don't have a specific process laid out, because these could be many different issues requiring different approaches and different discussions. We have principles laid out in a draft, but they don't require the same level of governance as formal disputes.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

That's in a draft, so it's not sure yet. There's no certainty around it, from my understanding.

I'd like to talk about the bylaws relating generally to the conduct of the affairs of the Office of the Grocery Sector Code of Conduct.

Section 2.01(b) on membership states the following: “Membership in the Corporation shall be available to corporations, associations and partnerships as set out below…”. According to the code of conduct, associations can be members. Is that correct? Can associations join the code of conduct?

[Karen Proud]

No, that's not correct. I'm not sure which document you're looking at.

Our bylaws are very clear that associations cannot be members of the office. They're currently interim members, because they've been tasked to set up the office and go through the governance, but associations cannot be members of the office. The code has been designed to operate between retailers and their suppliers, not between retailers, suppliers and associations.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I have the bylaw right here, and it clearly says, “Membership in the Corporation shall be available to corporations, associations and partnerships as set out below…”. I'm surprised to hear you say that associations can't be members.

Speaking of associations and the fact that they can't join, I'd like to point out that entities such as Peak of the Market and the Canadian Independent Grocery Buyers Alliance are members. Are those associations?