That is okay, Madam Speaker. I have all the time in the world today.
Canadians pay some of the most punishing prices in the world at the grocery store. Canadians pays double the rent they did only a few years ago. Canadians have it really tough, and inflation is the culprit, fuelled by the government's reckless spending and a punitive carbon tax. It has increased prices significantly over the past year, almost 18% for groceries alone. Inflation is rising in faster in Canada than in the United States, and has risen over 43% in the last two months. This is after the government said it was gone.
It is also a story about a lack of competition and competition laws to look after the consumer, the people, and to boost competition in the industry. After eight years of the Liberal government, we are finally seeing some results. We are finally seeing some competition law changes in a government bill. I will be the first to admit this is a really good idea, especially to eliminate the efficiencies defence, which, of course, right now allows any companies to merge if they find efficiencies. A lot of times those have been in job losses. Superior Propane used it not just once but three times because it is such a good law.
I say it was a great idea, because it was actually my idea. For the first reading of the efficiencies defence in Bill C-339, I read in the House on June 8, and we were supposed to go to debate in November, but I digress. This is a great idea, and I give credit to the government where credit is due for taking this great idea. It is a good start. That is combined with the Leader of the Opposition's idea only a few weeks ago to eliminate the GST in purpose-built rental housing, which is a great idea. I want to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on his first piece of government legislation. Just wait until we form government. It is going to be something.
This is a big one. As much as we can shrug and say this bill would do some of what we want to do to tackle grocery prices in Canada, this bill misses one of the biggest, most pressing actions of all, which is to remove the carbon tax, which is added for farmers with no rebate. The median price is $150,000 per farm. Where does that price go? It gets added to what the consumer pays. What about the carbon tax for the trucker who picks up the food from the farm? Where does that price go? There is no rebate; it gets added to what the consumer pays. The carbon price is added on the cold storage facility that stores the food. Where does that carbon tax go? It gets added to what the consumer pays.
Where does the carbon tax to the grocery store go? It is added on what the consumer, who drives to the grocery store and picks up the groceries, pays. The carbon tax adds cost after cost to what the consumer pays. It punishes farmers and consumers. At the end of the day, when we look at what is missing from this bill, when talking about trying to tackle grocery prices, we are missing the deletion of the carbon tax, which is something that the Conservatives really support.
Additionally, Canadians can buy food across Canada from really only five competitors. Let me tell everyone this right now. If anyone has ever visited No Frills, Provigo, Zehrs, Fortinos, Valu-mart, Dominion, Superstore or Shoppers Drug Mart, they have shopped at Loblaws. For those who have ever gone to Farm Boy, Lawtons, Foodland or Longo's, and my favourite, the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, which is not independent, they are all owned by Sobeys. Those who have ever gone to Jean Coutu, Super C, Food Basics or Brunet have gone to Metro.
Three Canadian competitors plus Walmart and Costco makes five competitors controlling 80% of all the grocery retail in Canada. By comparison, Americans have 10. At least they have dealt with it. The Americans are not perfect, but at least they are there. When we compare Canadian grocery prices to American ones, the Americans have no carbon tax, there are more competitors and the prices are lower. If Canadians are buying $40 or $50 worth of groceries, Americans are paying only $25 to $30. Sometimes it is really great to have these American neighbours so we can compare what they have and what we do not have.
How big is Loblaws? Let us talk about that for a moment. This is really neat to me. Loblaws sells 62% of Coca-Cola in Canada. Let us think about that for a minute. Loblaws is so big that it controls the whole market for Coca-Cola.
Why is that important? Take an independent like Freson Bros. Freson Bros. is Canada's largest independent grocer in the great province of Alberta and they have independent grocers. Freson Bros. is so great. As an independent supplier in rural Canada, they have Red Seal butchers and Red Seal bakers.
They employ really great individuals in their local independent stores. These are really, truly independent stores that pay good wages in rural areas, and yet they have to pay more for Coca-Cola because Loblaws holds the monopoly.
That is what monopolies do. They hold dominance and they control prices. When one has less choice as a consumer, then the monopolies win. If it was not for Coca-Cola having dominance through Loblaws, maybe that would be something that we could pay less for.
That example can be used over and over again when it comes to products that consumers try to buy every day in their stores. We call it abuse of dominance and it is prevalent among our big five major grocers.
Worst of all, Canadians are paying increases on food that is actually shrinking. Shrinkflation is the phenomenon of buying products that are actually decreasing in size. A lot of Canadians are not even aware of this. When one goes to the grocery store and one buys a pack of, let us say, granola bars for our children, normally there would have been six in a box. Consumers are now finding that there are five.
When parents go to put those granola bars in their students' lunches, they are paying a little bit more for a product that is smaller. That phenomenon is shrinkflation. That is coming because of inflation, because of this dominance of monopolies.
All the while, Canadians are seeing food prices that are actually going up. Food prices in all of Canada, this year, increased 6.8%, almost 7%. The two-year increase is 17%. Meat had a 6.5% increase this year. Over two years, it was 13.5%. Eggs increased around 3% this year. Over two years, it was 20%. Breakfast cereals increased 10% this year. Over two years, it was 25%. Fresh vegetables increased 9% this year. Over two years, it was 19%. Coffee, and we all need coffee, especially, sometimes, in the House, increased 8% over one year. Over two years, it was 24%.
Food purchases by restaurants increased 8% this year in costs, and 14% over two years. Think of a lot of these restaurants, these small, independent local businesses that took on loans during the pandemic and now have to try to pass these costs off to consumers. It is really difficult for consumers who want to go out for a meal.
From seed to source in Canada, there is also little choice. We talk about what has come into Canada. We talk about the growing influence of Walmart and Costco. Decisions made by the Competition Bureau over the last 20 or 30 years allowed, in one instance, one grocery store to buy another; and allowed a major chain, Amazon, to buy Whole Foods, which I think will have a dominant effect in the future, even though it has decreased stores lately.
We think of where we have Amazon warehouses. If we look at the next 50 years, we may not even be using grocery stores any more. When we look at automation and the increase of innovation, grocery delivery could be all in the form of warehousing. When we look at what that impact of Amazon, an American company, not a Canadian company, has, it is pretty significant, when we look at what it could mean over the next 20 or 30 years.
When we look at the consolidation, the actual competition laws that exist, yes, we have had some pretty bad decisions by the Competition Bureau, but it was all the result of a bad Competition Act.
We allowed Sobeys to buy IGA. This one is amazing to me. The Independent Grocers Association should be independent and was formed as being independent. Sobeys now owns IGAs. They say half are independent. I do not really believe that. They are owned by a major corporation.
Metro bought A&P. Loblaws bought Shoppers Drug Mart. I think, at the time, when the Competition Bureau looked at it, it said, look, we have a pharmacy, we are not going to have an impact for consumers.
Now, as we look at it, Shoppers Drug Marts, which are open sometimes to midnight, are the only grocery store in some of these rural towns across Canada. What I am hearing is that they are making as much as 20% profit on fresh produce. Let us think about the costs already. Again, it is based on supply and demand, but we allowed this under our laws. We allowed Loblaws to buy Shoppers Drug Mart. Sobeys bought Longo's. It bought Farm Boy, and again, there is less independence. We have allowed this through our existing competition law.
The result has been that if one walks into any store, it is an illusion that it is not part of the big three. It is also a consolidation that gives Canadians little choice. We talk about freedom. It is the freedom of Canadians to decide where their money is going to go, where their paycheques are going to go. The illusion has been, through this lack of competition, that Canadians have choice.
The reality is that Canadians have little choice. Even with the Loblaws brand of Your Independent Grocer, it is no more independent than any other grocery store or any other business.
I want to tell a little story also about Kleenex in Canada. We can no longer buy Kleenex in Canada. Is that not sad? At the end of the day, Kleenex is beholden to the big brands. Loblaws, for instance, because it has a monopoly, decides where it wants to put certain brands. It says to suppliers that if they are going to lower prices, this is where they need to lower them to. If they are going to drop five or 10 cents, this is where it is at. Right now, that is held by Kruger paper in Canada, and that is the Scotties brand, with the funky boxes and great colours.
The problem with that and the story of Kleenex leaving Canada is this. As we did last week, we have a “perp” walk and bring all the five grocers in. The government officials told them to lower prices and that they are going to impose a tax on them. We know that, with these companies being big conglomerates and publicly traded companies, a tax will only go to the consumer. We know this in a capitalist society. It is simple economics. Everyone knows this. The conglomerates put pressure then on the manufacturers.
Let me say this. I have a Kruger paper manufacturing facility in Quinte West in my riding, which employs 120 employees. If the companies feel the pressure to decrease prices, they start to find savings in other areas of that business, which means layoffs and shorting shifts, hurting Canadian workers. That is the power that these big monopolies have. With respect to competition laws and how we have to fix them, we need to fix the dominance that these big monopolies have. It is Kleenex today and we do not want it to be Kruger tomorrow. That is really important. Big players cannot control smaller players. We have to make sure small players have their say when it comes to the Canadian economy because then it is really the consumer who has the say.
I want to talk about shrinkflation. It is really fascinating. It is the process of shrinking product sizes while keeping the prices the same or even increasing them. In essence, people are getting less for the same amount of money. This trend is becoming more prevalent in the grocery industry and its consequences ripple through our households.
Let us start with the grocery stores themselves. As people walk through the aisles, they might notice that their favourite products do not seem as big as they used to be. A cereal box, a bag of chips or a carton of ice cream all appear slightly smaller. Manufacturers are reducing the quantity of the product. It is often in subtle ways, like reducing the number of cookies in a pack or slimming down the width of a candy bar. I have some examples of this. A year ago, a jar of Nutella was 400 grams and now it is 375 grams, which is a 6.3% reduction. Campbell's Chunky soup was 540 millilitres and now it is 515 millilitres, which is a 5% reduction. Crispers used to be 175 grams and is now 145 grams, which I noticed the other day when I was picking up some groceries for my children for school. This is a reduction of 17%.
. With respect to a family on a budget, I talked to somebody the other day who said that for their family, because of the increases in rent and mortgage and bringing home less of a paycheque, they make a dinner for the family and they make something else for their children. They cannot afford to give the same meal to the children as they do for their family, and it might be a grilled cheese sandwich. Even with Kraft Singles, before, a package was 24 slices and now it is 22 slices. When people are making lunch or dinner for their family, that is a big deal; It is a reduction of 9%.
We have Chewy granola bars. A box used to contain six bars and now it contains five bars. A bag of Tim Hortons fine-ground original blend coffee used to be 1,000 grams and now it is 930 grams, which is a reduction of 7%. That is pretty sad.
When I talk about a box of granola bars that went from six bars to five bars, there is something else significant that happens with that reduction. That is the imposition of a new tax, called the snack tax, that goes onto everyday grocery items. Not a lot of Canadians know this, but there is a snack tax that goes on many items like cookies, chips, ice cream or granola bars, which maybe sometimes is the only thing we can put in our child's lunch bags. When the manufacturer uses shrinkflation and decreases prices, that snack tax is automatically implemented. This means that because of inflation, because of dominance of our monopolies and now because manufacturers are shrinking their products, we actually have government tax going on some of these items in the grocery stores. The government is now making money on items because of inflation and that is really sad.
When we take this to committee, this is something we are obviously going to study. I know my colleague before me from the NDP talked about some other elements. How sad is it that the government is making money on certain elements of what is happening in the grocery store? That is what is happening when it comes to shrinkflation.
When it comes to looking after the consumer, who looks after rent and groceries, we certainly have a lot of ideas we need to implement that are going to help the consumer. A lot of these ideas came from this side of the House but also from a lot of great committee work from members on this side of the House. We need to be very cognizant when we are putting all this forward that we are doing the best we can for consumers, the families who every day need to make decisions for their households at the grocery store.
This bill is equivalent to the shrug emoji. We can support it, but it needs a lot more to actually make grocery prices affordable in Canada. After eight years, the tired Liberal government is out of ideas. There are a few good ideas in here thanks to Conservatives, but it fails for the most part to follow through with better ideas to address the major oligopoly in Canada, which gives Canadians little choice and has them paying more at the grocery store for less.
Shrinkflation and the taxes that follow are eating more of Canadians' paycheques. The carbon tax takes a chunk from farmers, those who deliver the food and of course the consumers who buy the food.
Competition Act changes are good, but we must go further to stop the abusive dominance provisions that exist in the Competition Act. The provisions that are the most prevalent include those that allow monopolies to take advantage of Canadians, of consumers, and most importantly, of manufacturers and farmers in the whole process.
Most of all, we need more competition in Canada from food manufacturers and farmers to ensure Canadians have freedom of choice. When they have freedom of choice, they will decide best where to put their money, where to put their hard-earned paycheques. We need more competition to bring lower prices home for Canadians and their families.
