Evidence of meeting #28 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employees.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Empire Company Limited
Not to my knowledge, but there's an exception here. When Eric and I had the discussion on May 19, I made sure we had, and so did Eric, our general counsel, our lawyers, on that call. We were coming to a point where it looked like lockdowns would be over with, and I wanted to be very careful that we were not communicating anything on this and that we weren't doing anything wrong. We talked about safety. Then Eric asked me, you know, what's going on with hero pay, and we decided we would not talk about it.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
You decided with Mr. La Flèche that you wouldn't talk about something that Mr. La Flèche expressly asked you about.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Empire Company Limited
Correct. I said we wouldn't talk about it and we did not talk about it. We didn't—
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Mr. La Flèche, when Mr. Medline says that to you, that he's not comfortable speaking about this, do you think it's then acceptable to revisit the conversation with Ms. Davis? Were there any red flags for you out of Mr. Medline's conversation?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metro inc.
No, there was no red flag. As Mr. Medline just said, he asked for their lawyers to be on the line. I said sure and we had the conversation. On the decision to end or not end pandemic pay, I got the answer that they hadn't made a decision and that they didn't want to talk about it further. They had not made the decision.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Ms. Davis, did you receive a reply to your courtesy email?
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I trust that you will provide this committee with your email and all correspondence related to it, including all replies. Will you do that for us?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Ms. Davis, with respect to that request for correspondence, please make sure to send that information to the clerk so that it can be forwarded to the members of the committee.
We'll now move to MP Rempel Garner.
You have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I'm going to build on what Mr. Erskine-Smith just asked.
Mr. La Flèche, in your opening remarks, and I believe in everyone's opening remarks, the point was made over and over again that the decision to end the pandemic pay was made independently, yet you just said in your response to Mr. Erskine-Smith that the piece of information you received from your competitor helped your company make this decision. Did you want to clarify your opening statement?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metro inc.
No. There is no contradiction at all in what I said. We make our own decisions based on the information we have. The more information we have, the more clarity in our decisions. When we made our decision, it was our own. We acted alone, based on the information we had, including that last email of confirmation that they were ending, as planned, on June 13.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
The decision to end pandemic pay in your organization was based on the fact that your competitors were also ending pandemic pay. Is that correct?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metro inc.
It was one factor among others contributing to our own decision.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metro inc.
There was the workload, the economic reopening, the many other retailers being open. We were slowly returning to more normal conditions and lower business volumes. We thought it was the right time to end the temporary premium that was communicated as temporary from the beginning.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Mr. La Flèche, in your conversation with Mr. Medline of May 19, what other topics were discussed outside of the issue of “hero pay” being raised?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metro inc.
We didn't discuss anything. I asked if they had made a decision on maintaining or not. There may have been “Isn't this incredible, the business and the volume, and our people are working hard”, and some general opening comments like that, but there was no discussion. It was just what we were living through. It was an unprecedented crisis. Everybody was working really hard, including us and our people all over the company, so that may have been mentioned.
The purpose of the call that I initiated was to find out if they were maintaining or ending. The answer was that they hadn't made a decision yet and we weren't going to talk about that.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
What was your purpose in asking that question to Mr. Medline?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metro inc.
Getting information so that we could have more light on making our own decision.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Metro inc.
We operate in a competitive environment. We want to treat our employees fairly and be seen to treat our employees fairly. We think we do. The more information I have on what others are doing, how they are treating their employees and how much they are paying and for how long, is valid information that I tried to get.