Certainly.
Rest assured, Mr. Chair, I was being completely altruistic and sympathetic.
I'd now like to turn to Mr. Charlebois.
In a comment you made earlier, you mentioned price increase dynamics among food retailers in Canada. You said margins were a little higher in the U.S., so when wholesale input prices fluctuate, grocers and Walmart don’t necessarily need to increase their prices immediately just to maintain their margins. Here in Canada, margins are lower, so major fluctuations are immediately passed on to consumers.
I find that interesting. To tie it back to our study on credit cards and interchange fees, I wonder whether a drop in interchange fees would be pocketed by merchants or passed on to consumers. According to some critics, grocers would benefit from the lower interchange rates we’re proposing. That said, I wonder whether slightly larger margins on the cost that interchange fees represent could mean grocery stores might not need to raise prices as much. I'm talking about input price fluctuations over the next two, three or four years, in this two or three-year horizon.
How can we criticize grocery stores for not immediately lowering or adjusting prices as soon as interchange fees come down, if it means they'd have the leeway not to have to raise prices later?