Industry Committee on July 10th, 2020

[Eric La Flèche]

It's just as I said. It was public information that their premium was ending on June 13, and the purpose of the call was strictly to ask if that was still their plan to end on June 13 or were they thinking of maintaining. The answer I got was that they hadn't made a decision yet.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Do you have notes from that phone call?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, MP Gray, you're a little over time.

We'll now go to MP Lambropoulos.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for coming to answer our questions today. My first questions will go to Ms. Davis.

You claim your stores were completely safe, and you've repeated it time and time again throughout this conversation today. As an individual, you are allowed to feel that way even though you're not in the stores yourself, but everybody I know considered grocery shopping to be the riskiest activity they engaged in throughout the pandemic. People were afraid of going. They were sanitizing their groceries the moment they got home so the virus didn't stay within their walls.

What makes you feel your stores were safe, considering that my colleague pointed out the fact that there was no soap in your washrooms? What do you feel made your stores safe?

[Sarah Davis]

I think we spent millions of dollars to put safety protocols into our stores. You have to understand that we were deemed to be an essential service. We didn't have the option to not operate, so we spent lots of money to make sure our stores were safe.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

You also mentioned it was because of the extenuating circumstances that you wanted to give this premium to your employees to show appreciation.

Would you agree that the very necessity of these extraordinary measures, the millions of dollars you've put towards putting equipment into your stores, shows that your front-line workers are still facing these extraordinary working conditions?

[Sarah Davis]

Safety precautions have been put in place now and they are the new normal. What has changed is the volume going through our stores and the panic buying that was happening during that period of time.

The other thing that has changed is that the rest of the economy and businesses, as deemed by the government and by the health people, have now opened up as well, and businesses are all starting to open up again.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

You also gave that as a reason for why the premium was cut, because other businesses opened up and were paying their employees the same salaries.

Meanwhile a lot of these guys have been closed for months and were on the brink of bankruptcy and, therefore, are trying to save themselves, while your store was seeing profits because your employees were heroically working to offer an essential service to Canadians.

Do you not see the difference there? Do you not see the fact that you didn't lose a significant amount of profit during this time puts you in a different category from the other businesses that have opened recently?

[Sarah Davis]

As I said, we did spend a lot of money on making sure that the safety precautions were in place, and we thought it was an appropriate time to remove the temporary premium, which was always explained to people to be temporary.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

You're open to the public and while you have people wait two metres in line to get into the store and you have them wash their hands once they're there, people have emailed me telling me there is no virus. The general public is not necessarily on the same page about how dangerous this virus is. A lot of people are not wearing masks when they come into your stores.

How can you tell me that your employees are completely safe at the hands of the general public, especially the front-line workers who are there and who are, in many cases, receiving minimum wage? How are you protecting these people from people going up to them and asking them questions when they're not wearing a mask? If I were somebody who was asymptomatic, if I didn't believe in the virus and I was showing up at the store after having gone to a whole bunch of other places, how would you protect me in this case?

[Sarah Davis]

As I said, we did put many protections in place. We have encouraged our employees, colleagues as well as customers to wear masks in line with what the government has suggested. In those areas where it's been mandated, we have absolutely followed that, as well, for both colleagues and customers.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

You think it was an ethical decision to remove the two-dollar premium you had given to your employees in appreciation of risking their lives every single day during this pandemic, while other people were sitting at home receiving $2,000 every month?

[Sarah Davis]

As I mentioned, we were an essential service, so we did have to make sure that people did come to work every single day, and absolutely, the two dollars was in appreciation of that. I'm unbelievably proud of the team that did that.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

You also mentioned earlier that, had your store not been completely safe—in your words, even though you've mentioned that there was a lack of soap and other things—you would have closed. Therefore, you would have received absolutely no profits and you would be in the same position as many of these other companies.

That's my time, though.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, MP Lambropoulos.

Our next round of questions goes to Monsieur Lemire.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Ms. Davis.

On June 11, your chief executive officer, Mr. Weston, stated the following on behalf of your company:

I continue to be a strong believer in a progressive minimum wage and would support any government-led effort to establish a living wage.

What is a living wage?

[Sarah Davis]

What he was referring to is that we believe in a progressive minimum wage. What I said in my opening remarks, and what Mr. Weston was referring to, is that we would be very pleased to work with the government on determining what a living wage for the various areas of Canada would be. We would support that and we would work with the government on that.

Our comment would be that it can't be one company that determines a living wage. It can't be one industry. It has to be done in consultation between the government, the companies and of course the unions as well.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Why do you need the support of other companies to make your own choice?

[Sarah Davis]

Because we don't have all the information to be able to determine what a living wage in every part of Canada is, we would need to work with the information that the government has as well.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In concrete terms, what would prevent you from taking this step on your own?

[Sarah Davis]

To me, it is bigger than just one company. [Technical difficulty—Editor] industry decision [Technical difficulty—Editor] done in collaboration—

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I'm sorry, Madam Chair, but I didn't hear the translation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Madam Davis, could you repeat your response please?

[Sarah Davis]

My response was that it can't be just one company making the decision. It really does need to be done in concert with the government and other parties. It's bigger than just one industry or one company. We're competing against multinationals. We're competing with e-commerce giants. It can't be up to just one company to make those decisions.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Nevertheless, I believe that the perception of the work done by your front-line workers has been positively affected.

If you could make working conditions better, would you do so by creating full-time positions, providing higher wages or benefits, or improving pay equity? We know that many of the employees are women.

What would you do first?