Industry Committee on June 3rd, 2024

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

What other countries, for example, use a hard 60% line? If a company were to have 60.01% of the market following a merger, what other country would strictly forbid the merger without analyzing the case and looking at the circumstances?

I am not saying I am against the bill. I am really trying to understand it. It's an honest effort.

Can you name three other countries that do that?

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

We have—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

If you consulted all of them, can you tell me that?

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Yes. We consulted legislation or bills in Europe and Australia that guided our decision to set the threshold at 60%.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Do the Americans have a 60% threshold?

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

No, I don't think so, but the Americans have competition laws that are stronger than ours.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

They are also more flexible.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Yes, we looked at what is done in the United States, too, but for the 60% threshold, we really looked at the examples of Europe and Australia.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Singh.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

You're welcome.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Mr. Masse, the floor is yours.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you, Mr. Singh, for coming.

I find it curious that my Conservative colleagues have forgotten their own history. I remember the days of the Conservatives under Peter MacKay and David Orchard, the takeover and so forth, and even under the Harper administration, when they put just enough members in the House of Commons to oppose or turn over a government because they didn't have them in there. They went to the lobby like they did the other time, just this past session, instead of actually taking it on and trying to be constructive.

I think this bill is important because, despite the differences at the table about things, we can always find reasons not to do it.

This committee, however, actually has a good record of bipartisanship and putting on record some of these issues. With the grocery store chains in particular, it was this committee that first brought the CEOs here, because not only were they doing the bread price-fixing, but they also ended the pandemic pay the very same day, across the board.

Could you elaborate a bit more about the issue of bread pricing? It is a basic staple of human life that we use in Canada.

How might this bill have affected the Rogers-Shaw merger that went ahead? Had we had this protection, what would the potential outcome of that have been?

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Thank you very much for the question.

Again, fundamentally, I can't think of something that's more important for Canadians than being able to buy food. It's a necessity. Everyone needs to do it. What we're seeing very clearly, if we look across the country, is that when Canadians go to buy their groceries, they're getting ripped off when they go through checkout. They know it. When Canadians were asked this question, they said very clearly that they felt that corporate greed was a major reason that food prices were up.

This bill directly targets that. We're going to directly target the large corporate grocery stores in our country—the Loblaws, the Metros, the Sobeys, the Walmarts, the Costcos—and go after them directly to say that they cannot rip off consumers. This bill would provide additional protection.

The specific area that's missing, and that I pointed out to the Liberals, is that while we were able to get them to change the penalties on anti-competitive behaviour, they've refused to put in the strengthened penalties on conspiracy or when large corporations work together to rip off Canadians. The bread price-fixing scenario, which I've alluded to, was that the large corporate grocery stores and large corporate bread producers got together and jacked up the price of bread. They were found guilty of doing so. As a result, they received fines. The heftiest fine was on Canada Bread Company. It was only $50 million. In the context of how much they made and how much they ripped off Canadians, it was a slap on the wrist.

Our bill provides clear guidelines for judges to impose stricter and more severe penalties. We know that in Canada, as a common law country, the penalties will follow jurisprudence. Right now the precedent that's been set is $50 million. That's the highest fine. That is simply not high enough. We've provided a guideline for a judge of how high they can go. On what we've provided, two of them I think are very significant. One of them is 10% of the revenue of a company. For a company like Loblaws, which makes $60 billion, the fine can be as high as $6 billion. Giving a judge a clear guideline of how high they can go will allow us to have more severe penalties to deter these companies.

Another example of what we've allowed for is triple the benefit accrued. If collectively these corporations made $15 billion, then collectively a judge can impose a sanction of $15 billion in fines. That, again, is very serious deterrence. If a company knows they're going to have a jeopardy of billions of dollars in fines, they're not going to rip off Canadians. That's important.

You mentioned also the Rogers-Shaw merger. To be very clear, the Competition Bureau tried to stop it. We asked the minister directly to stop it. The Liberals refused to stop this merger, and they should have. That merger is bad for Canadians. It's going to be bad for competition. It's going to lower options and choices. It's going to increase prices.

Our bill, where we were able to force the government to include some of those measures, would ensure that if a merger results in more than 30% of the market share, there would be a very difficult process that the company would have to go through to prove that it would benefit Canadians or prove that it can benefit consumers. That's a very difficult threshold. They would not have been able to make that threshold proven in the case of the Rogers-Shaw merger.

In that merger case, it was almost 60%, but it didn't hit that threshold. If it were 60% or higher, then it would trigger an immediate ban of that merger, which is something we need to have. We need to have strict measures in place to prevent these oligopolies from being formed, because we're seeing the result of them. With corporate grocery stores, with telecommunications, Canadians have less choice and higher costs, and it is ripping them off.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

I know that the Liberals think, “Oh, gotcha moment”, because we on the opposition side here have been pushing against the tribunal on the privacy legislation and offering solutions for it. One of the issues we have with that is the mere fact that the Competition Bureau tribunal is actually suing our Competition Bureau itself. It's going to cost Canadians money and also confidence in the Competition Bureau, in my opinion. That's one of the reasons we don't find a tribunal to be one of the best things in the place.

Your bill looks to amend the tribunal, to some degree, by actually stopping it from being able to sue back the Competition Bureau. Can you elaborate on that? It's absolutely absurd that we would actually have a position of the Competition Bureau basically not only overturned and overruled but then punished, and punishing Canadians because they stood up for the right things and they did the right professional job.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Yes, I think that amendment just speaks for itself. The fact that it would prevent that type of lawsuit from happening would seem to be a very sensible thing to do. If people want to exercise their right to raise a concern, that should not result in them being punished in return.

I think that is an appropriate amendment that we're pushing for, and it's something that I support.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Do I have time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You're out of time, Mr. Masse, but we'll get back to you.

Mr. Perkins, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Singh, for being here.

You spoke a lot in your opening, obviously, about food prices. It's a main driver of this initiative. However, over nine years, the NDP has voted for every single budget that Justin Trudeau has put forward, and Canadians are more miserable and hungrier than ever. For example, lettuce is up 94% in that time, onions 69% and cabbage 70%—since your deal with the Liberals. A Dalhousie study by “The Food Professor”, as he calls himself, shows that carbon taxes are increasing wholesale food prices by 34%.

My question is simple: Will you finally admit that carbon taxes increase the price of food?

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Well, a couple of things are just false in that comment.

In nine years, we have not supported every budget. That's not true.

In terms of the costs that Canadians are going through, Canadians were asked this very same question: What do you think is a major driver of your groceries?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Canadians were asked, and they answered that the major driver that's pushing up the cost of their food is corporate greed.

We also had an investigation. We had the Competition Bureau look into this, and it is very clear that corporations are ripping off Canadians. In fact, economists have made it clear—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

But, Mr. Singh, that isn't what I asked you.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

—that, more and more, large corporations are ripping off Canadians, so we're going after the major driver.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Please answer the question.

Is the carbon tax increasing the price of food, yes or no?

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

We know that the major driver pushing up the price of food is corporate greed, so why would we—