Debates of Feb. 2nd, 2024

First Responders Tax Credit

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Sasamat volunteer firefighters protect Anmore and Belcarra. Coquitlam's search and rescue volunteers also put their lives on the line for their fellow Canadians. They give their time, training and efforts. This also allows municipalities to keep property taxes lower. If their services as required were paid, this would be optimum, but at the moment they are giving their time and their expertise as volunteers.

I am presenting a petition calling on the government to increase the tax credits, at the very minimum, for these essential volunteers, and to support Bill C-310.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect if you were to canvass the House at this time, you might find unanimous consent to call it 1:30 p.m. so we can begin private members' hour.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from November 6, 2023, consideration of the motion that Bill C-352, An Act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Lowering Prices for Canadians Act

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to address the chamber with respect to Bill C-352, which would amend the Competition Act.

I think we all agree in the chamber that a stronger competition enforcement regime would be good for all Canadians. The bill proposed by the New Democratic Party, while receptive to the need for change in competition law, and generally aligned with the government's overall direction to date, must, however, be examined in light of the vast number of changes that overlap with and have already been introduced by Bill C-56 and Bill C-59.

Bill C-56 became law in December 2023, while Bill C-59 remains under consideration by Parliament at the present time. Bill C-56 implements, and Bill C-59 would implement, an overhaul of the Competition Act following the extensive consultations undertaken in 2022 and in 2023. The government received a great deal of input throughout its consultations, bolstering the knowledge gained over the years of stewardship over this law. The amendment packages assembled in its two bills address most of the issues identified in the law that historically made it weaker than regimes of Canada's closest partners. That would no longer be the case.

Modernizing the Competition Act is a necessary step in making Canada's economy more affordable for consumers and more fair and accessible to business. The government's extensive commitment to competition law reform was led by Bill C-56, the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, followed by Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act, 2023. Both of these bills are directed at enhancing affordability and competition, and together they represent the most comprehensive reform package to the Competition Act in decades. They respond to the submissions of hundreds of very different stakeholders, including businesses, legal experts, academics, non-governmental organizations and the commissioner of competition himself.

Bill C-56 implemented a set of targeted but critical amendments, following especially from the Competitions Bureau's market study on Canada's retail grocery sector. As members already know, Bill C-56 brought much-needed changes such as allowing information to be compelled under court order in the course of a market study, helping to remove barriers when diagnosing potential competition issues.

Bill C-56 also repealed the efficiencies exceptions for anti-competitive mergers and collaborations, and in so doing eliminated what many observers consider to have been the single biggest contributor to corporate concentration in Canada. The bill further allowed for better prevention and remedy of the abuse by larger players of their dominant position by requiring only proof of anti-competitive intent or effects to prohibit certain forms of conduct. This more appropriately allocates the burden of proof, as compared to the previous test, which significantly limited the number of instances where the bureau could intervene.

Finally, Bill C-56 addressed harm from collaborations between non-competing parties that are designed to limit competition. Once this provision is in effect, the bureau would be able to review any type of collaboration whose purpose it is to restrain competition and seek a remedy, including an order to prevent the activity where competition is being substantially harmed or is likely to be. This would be especially impactful on restrictive covenants between grocers and landlords, allowing more grocers to set up shop near competitors.

Bill C-56 was, of course, amended in committee through a multi-party effort, incorporating several of the elements in Bill C-352 that now no longer require consideration.

Bill C-59 represents an even more substantial overhaul in our competition enforcement regime, addressing a large variety of aspects of the Competition Act. The amendments would give the Competition Bureau a longer period to detect and address anti-competitive mergers that are not notified in advance, helping to address “killer acquisitions” in the digital market. The bill would broaden the bureau's review of competitor collaborations to include those that harmed competition in the past, and would allow for financial penalties to be sought when necessary.

Importantly, Bill C-59 would facilitate private actions against a broader range of anti-competitive or harmful practices and empower those affected to seek financial compensation in many cases. This improvement would complement the bureau's work in protecting the marketplace. The bill would also ensure that costs awards would not be ordered against the commissioner of competition in the vast majority of circumstances, another element addressed by Bill C-352.

The bill also includes anti-reprisal provisions, which would ensure that co-operation with the bureau or participation in legal proceedings could not be punished by stronger businesses. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that Bill C-59 would strengthen the law's testament of greenwashing the false advertising of sustainability claims while also facilitating environmentally beneficial collaborations that would not harm competition. Moreover, it would ensure that a means of diagnosis for repair could not be denied in a way that would harm competition.

All in all, little remains in Bill C-352 that has not already been addressed. On the contrary, Bill C-59 includes several elements missing from this private member's bill. The government's consultation saw over 130 stakeholders raise over 100 reform proposals. All submissions made by identified groups are publicly available, and the government published a “what we heard” report synthesizing them. This public process has been a key source of input to help us develop reform proposals. We are confident that the measures included in government bills comprehensively address the needs expressed by Canadians.

In conclusion, I think it is fair to say that the ambition of Bill C-352 correctly reflects the importance Canadians place on having a strengthened competition law framework. However, all of the major issues it raises have been or are being substantially dealt with through Bill C-56 and Bill C-59. As such, I would encourage members of the House interested in advancing competition reform to prioritize the rapid passage of Bill C-59.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to continue debate on this very important private member's bill that deals with amending the Competition Act to address the woeful lack of competition in our country, particularly a growing lack of competition that has occurred after eight years under the Liberal government.

I was very disappointed to hear the previous Liberal speaker talk about how the Liberals intend to not support this legislation. They expect Canadians to trust them and trust that their legislation has all the solutions needed to solve the competition problems, but many of the competition problems, as I will show in my speech, have been caused by the amount of consolidation that has happened in the Canadian marketplace under eight years of the Liberal government.

For example, Canadians pay the highest cellphone bills in the developed world, three times more than Australians pay and twice as much as our neighbours in the United States. I remember how hard the previous Conservative government worked to bring new wireless players into the Canadian market to help bring down prices for Canadian consumers. All of this hard work was unravelled under the Liberal government with the merger of Rogers and Shaw, which eliminated a major new entrant into the market that was providing much-needed competition.

We can also look at our banking sector, which is extraordinarily controlled by six large banking firms, and we have seen yet another takeover in the banking sector that has further consolidated Canadians' mortgages under a relatively few number of very large companies. Finally, we can look at the amount of consolidation happening in our airline sector, with Canada being dominated by just two large airlines representing 85% of the market, and there are more mergers coming. The government is even going after some of the new players with tax bills that are threatening to take new players out of our airline market.

When the Liberal government came to power nearly a decade ago, Canadians had a choice of eight Canadian grocery chains and now, after eight years of the Liberal government, the market is dominated by just three Canadian companies and two American multinational corporations. These are not signs of a healthy, dynamic and competitive marketplace. They are signs of a country that has an outdated approach to competition. The reality is that this is a Canadian problem. While the Liberal government blames international trends for the increasing prices we are seeing at the grocery stores and on our cellphone bills, the fundamental problem is the lack of choice that Canadians have and it is forcing Canadians to pay more.

The Competition Act is in desperate need of reform. It is rooted in a history of an industrial policy that sought to protect large Canadian companies from foreign competition, but it does nothing to promote competition domestically. In fact, I am not sure if the goal of having these companies protected so that they can grow is being achieved in this country because they are so protected that we are not seeing the innovation we need in this country to really develop the next level of technologies and practices.

Canada's weak competition laws allow a very few cartels to dominate whole industries. They shut out competitors, they drive up profits and, in this process, consumers are the obvious victims. They pay more for goods and services, which are not always of the best quality. This lack of choice leaves Canadians with no other options.

This does not just affect consumers. Indeed, the impact of this failing Competition Act has immense consequences on small and medium-sized producers. I come from an area that has a lot of farmers. We know that these big companies dictate prices to these farmers, and that really has an impact on them as well.

My riding is also home to one of Canada's largest family-owned grocery chains, Freson Bros., which was founded in 1955. I am very proud that Freson Bros. is in my riding. It has a number of locations across Alberta. I believe it is the largest grocery store chain that is not part of the major grocery store chains in Canada. It is really known for its high-quality products. It has excellent butcher shops. It has its own brand of sourdough, which is listed in one of the bread museums in the world, I believe in Belgium. It has developed a made-in-Alberta sourdough bread. I am very proud of that. People can walk into any Freson Bros. location in Alberta and they will immediately sense the high standard of care and quality that it puts into all of its products. This is a great example of a made-in-Canada business that promotes excellence and craftsmanship in its field.

Sadly, many smaller companies like Freson Bros. face immense hurdles to participate in the market. This high concentration of control among the very large companies has entrenched players that have become price setters in the market. When the Loblaws and the Walmarts of the world dictate what the prices will be for the products on the shelves, it is the smaller players that end up holding the bag and paying higher prices.

Let us take Coca-Cola, for example. Loblaws controls 62% of the Canadian market for Coca-Cola. That means that Loblaws effectively determines what the price is, not only for consumers, but for what all the other smaller players and distributors are paying as well.

How can smaller companies compete with these tactics? The answer is that they cannot. In any grocery store aisle, we can be sure that the amount smaller grocery stores pay for items like soda and other products is higher than that paid by the major players. It is a huge competitive edge, and while it may save consumers a couple of cents at the stores, it comes at the cost of eliminating real competition that would create long-term better prices for consumers.

I would ask my colleagues in the government what happened to their concerns over the middle class and those working hard to join it. After eight years of the government's reckless spending and fiscal incompetence, we know for a fact that hard-working Canadians are worse off. They are taxed more than ever, and they are paying more for these basic goods and services that they need to live their lives. As we have seen, Canada's weak competition laws continue to serve the interests of the large, established players, to the detriment of new players.

I want to talk about one very specific aspect of the competition rules that I do not think has been talked about enough. One of those aspects is the term “restrictive covenant” in real estate development. My colleagues may ask, what is a restrictive covenant? It refers to a situation in which a developer buys land, intending to build a grocery store and other businesses, such as a strip mall, for example. They will often be approached by one of the big players, saying they want to put their location in the area and that it will attract all these other ancillary business people who want to be involved. Attracting a big store like a Walmart is a big draw for a lot of small business owners who want to build in these big parking lots and these well-attended locations.

The operators of the Walmarts and the Superstores of the world do not want to enter a development if they think they are going to face competition. Therefore, on the one hand it is completely fair that a grocery store operator does not want to have another grocery store right next to them in the same parking lot, but it is not fair when they have restrictive covenants that say nobody can start a small butcher shop or a small boutique bakery because there is a bakery or a butcher shop in the grocery store; they pass these restrictive covenants that say that no other business can engage in any business that the grocery store is engaged in.

What we are doing is sterilizing the business sectors in our communities, and it is because of these restrictive covenants. That is really preventing a lot of small and medium-sized butchers and bakers and other business owners who compete with the grocery stores from getting into these developments and producing their superior boutique products. This is an area of the Competition Act that we need to look at much more deeply, because it is not only giving a huge advantage to these big incumbent players but also really hurting our small and medium-sized enterprises and our consumers.

As members can see, our current competition laws are seriously lacking in sophistication and are a major contributor to the problem. Far from creating competition, the current regime allows for the proliferation of monopolies all across our economy.

The Competition Bureau has said that we need to encourage foreign companies to enter the Canadian market. I am not necessarily against foreign companies, but I am wondering why the minister is spending so much time burning up the phones to try to bring a big new foreign player into the Canadian market, when we have not even addressed the rules and the barriers that are preventing great Canadian companies, like the Freson Brothers of the world and other companies, from being able to compete in the Canadian market. Why can we not remove the barriers so that we can allow a small or medium-sized Canadian business to become a big grocery player, rather than always having to look abroad to bring in another grocery player? As the Freson brothers told me in a text message, innovation is at the heart of small and medium-sized businesses. Survival is the driver, and community is the beneficiary.

I would like to support this update to the law. There are a lot of things in here that could help. I look forward to its passing and being studied at committee, because it is companies like Freson Brothers and other small grocery stores and boutique bakeries and butchers that are the real fabric of our community and that make our communities so special and unique. We need to do everything we can as parliamentarians to create a business climate that promotes Canadian innovators, Canadian investment and Canadian jobs, and that creates the competition we need in this country to ensure that we have a dynamic marketplace that will provide the benefits this country so sorely needs in this troubling economy.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, strengthening the Competition Act is important, and some of the proposals in Bill C‑352 aim to do just that.

For example, the enactment amends the Competition Act by increasing the penalties for certain anti-competitive acts. It also amends certain aspects of the merger review process, such as how gains in efficiency and market concentration are taken into account.

Furthermore, it requires the Competition Tribunal to make an order to dissolve or prohibit mergers that result in an excessive combined market share. It extends the limitation period for merger reviews from one year to three years. Finally, it amends the Competition Tribunal Act to remove the Tribunal's power to award costs against the Crown.

All of these things are positive, and that is why the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C‑352. However, I would like to remind members of one very specific situation.

Last fall, Bill C‑56 was debated, amended and then passed. Half of that bill dealt with amendments to the Competition Act. Members will recall that to get the NDP to support a gag order, M‑30, the government amended Bill C‑56 to include several items from Bill C‑352. A number of items from Bill C‑352 therefore ended up in Bill C‑56.

What is more, there was a big chunk of Bill C‑352 that was missing from Bill C‑56, so I brought it to committee and it passed. The committee chair ruled the amendment inadmissible, but his decision was overturned by all of the committee members, across all parties. That reversal was not challenged in the House.

There are many good things in Bill C‑352, but the bulk of it was already passed last fall. I therefore question the relevance of debating this bill again, given that its substance has already been passed by the House.

Much like in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, all that is left is the marlin's carcass. Poor Santiago. We are going to vote in favour of that carcass and conclude in committee that the substance of the bill has already been passed.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am so happy to be standing up for Canadians today on Bill C-352. This is finally addressing the anti-competitive behaviour that has been going on in Canada for decades, which has been supported by the present Liberal government, and the Conservative and Liberal governments before it.

These governments have been back and forth, ping-ponging the government status in this country for decades, and they have done nothing about the fact that consumers have been getting ripped off in the market. I want to thank the member for Burnaby South for raising this important debate in the House of Commons to finally address the lack of competition in this country and the overpriced goods and services that Canadians need to survive.

Canadians woke up this week to the news that corporate control of their medication was a reality. Loblaw and Manulife have potentially colluded together to limit access to life-saving medication for people in this country. Galen Weston is involved in Loblaw. We all know that. Galen Weston has been to committee many times about the skyrocketing price of groceries. We all know that Mr. Weston made the statement that these kind of profits are fine and there is nothing wrong with taking these kind of profits. Meanwhile, Canadians, people in my riding, are struggling to put food on the table.

Galen Weston, as an individual and as an influencer in the Canadian economy, has already got a disproportionate amount of control over people's ability to eat in this country. Now, we are in a situation where Galen Weston and the Loblaw company are going to have even more control over whether or not people, their family members and their friends have the medication they need to stay alive. This is serious business.

Although the competition board oversees anti-competitive behaviour, it has not had the teeth to enforce or make changes. I have been in this House all morning, and I heard the Conservatives say that they are there to create a business climate. This is the moniker of the Conservatives, and this is how they have won elections in the past. They talk about how smart they are on the economy, how smart they are on business and how they are going to make business so great.

I can say that the Conservatives are complicit in the fact that people are paying too much for their groceries, too much for their cellphone bills and too much for their medications. I could go on. The Conservatives work for corporations, and they have no idea how to run an economy.

There is something that bothers me as a woman standing in this chamber. I am a woman who spent 25 years in the grocery industry, many of those years as a business analyst, and many of those years out in the field as a salesperson working in Europe, the United States and Canada. However, because I am a woman, my voice is not heard and they think I do not know what I am talking about. The Conservatives, on their bench, have a number of members who are men, who talk down to me and speak to me like I do not know what I am talking about, when they have never had a job outside of a fast food restaurant chain.

I do not appreciate it. Canadians do not appreciate it. The Conservatives now and in the past, and the Liberals now and in the past, have been hoarding the profits that belong to Canadians through their taxes, and those Canadians should have access to medication and dental care when they need it.

In addition, they should have a national food program, so no child in this country goes to school hungry. Conservatives like to say that kids go to school hungry because their parents cannot afford food. It is true. Families are having a hard time affording food. Do members know why? They are starved of time and wages because of the policies of five decades of Conservatives and Liberals.

I know amazing parents who do not have time to get their children a healthy meal in the morning, at lunchtime and in the afternoon, because the capitalist-driven Conservatives and Liberals made the decision that they wanted those parents to work 12 to 14 hours a day. I think about the nurses and women who are working in the care economy, in long-term care homes. I think about the immigrants who come to this country to work in families, in people's homes, and are paid the minimum; they do not get status for themselves or their family, and their work is precarious. If they dare speak up and talk about the terrible working conditions they are forced into, they might get deported. It is tragic, yet Conservatives have the gall to stand up in this House today and say they are creating a good business climate and are concerned that too many people are going to the food bank. This is legislated choice and legislated poverty that was perpetuated by the Liberals, started by the Conservatives and continues today.

I will go to the Canada disability benefit. I cannot believe that I am the only one who receives daily messages from people with a disability in this country who are living in poverty and getting displaced by these corporate Conservatives and Liberals, who have decided that the best thing we could do is to upzone every property in this country, give it all to the developers to build luxury condos and stick seniors out in tents on the street. I note that the member for Edmonton Griesbach has been talking about this for a very long time. People are living in tents in -35°C weather. I think about the member for Nunavut, who talks about no investment in housing. People in Nunavut are sleeping in shifts in a two-bedroom home where 12 people live.

It is disgusting that these governments, Liberal and Conservative, have done this for decades. As the Prime Minister walks down Sparks Street or Wellington Street, he can see that people are homeless and struggling. What does the government do? It starts to claw back people's CEBA. For low-income people, who needed CEBA and their government benefits, the government has decided to claw back the government benefits now so that they can repay their CEBA. However, the corporate CEOs who are not paying their fair share of taxes, who took the wage subsidy and gave it to their shareholders, are fine.

Members can see that I am a bit upset, because I listened in the House today to some of the debates and I even heard my Bloc colleague say that this debate did not matter. For Canadians, this debate matters. The anti-competitive law is an antiquated law. It has not been looked at. It is putting Canadians at risk.

I can tell members that it would not stand in any other country in this world that one person, someone like Galen Weston, could have so much influence over what we eat or what medications we can take and, in general, control the narrative of what Liberals and Conservatives will say in this House.

Therefore, today I am going to stand up for the NDP and say that we are there, working for Canadians. No other party in this House is.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my constituents in Nunavut.

The leader of the NDP, the member for Burnaby South, has tabled a particularly important bill that can have benefits for Nunavummiut. Bill C-352, an act to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, is of interest to us because it is all about lowering prices. I thank him for tabling Bill C-352, because there is too much corporate control in Ottawa.

I like the way that the leader of the NDP put it. He said, “The corporate-controlled Conservatives set up a system that continues to benefit wealthy CEOs. The big lobby Liberals continue to protect the interests of those greedy CEOs.”

The leader of the NDP clearly understands the realities experienced by my constituents, and the NDP join him in this fight to stop greedy CEOs who exploit Canadians.

As the fourth party in the House, we have fought the hardest and got the most results for Canadians. Bill C-352 is yet another example of what an NDP government would look like: It would make changes in federal systems that make it easier for Canadians to afford food, to afford the cost of living and, indeed, not be punished by corporate greed.

Competition is particularly challenging in Nunavut. The merger of First Air with Canadian North has seen the impacts of the lack of competition. If this bill had been in place during the First Air and Canadian North merger, anti-competitive rules would have been stronger. There would have been a better review of the merger, including how gains in efficiency and market concentration would be taken into account. I believe that the merger of the two airlines would have been prevented given that this merger resulted in an excessive combined market share.

The merger between Canadian North and First Air is not likely to restore competition in the airline industry in Nunavut. I challenge Nunavut Crown corporations to buy into the airline industry and to increase the market share. Canadian North, while Inuit owned, is owned by two corporations outside of Nunavut. I will admit, while I appreciate the services provided by Canadian North, it is the lack of competition that allows astronomical prices, like a person from Grise Fiord in my riding going to Ottawa at the price of over $11,000. The distance between Grise Fiord and Ottawa is only 3,461 kilometres. For a similar distance, between Ottawa and Victoria, British Columbia, the price of an airline ticket is $500. In the alternate, I challenge Air Canada and WestJet to increase the market share of the airline industry in Nunavut.

The airline industry is our lifeline. The health care system is too lacking, resulting in multiple millions of dollars spent on airline tickets for my constituents to attend everything from the most basic doctor appointments to more complicated and lengthy procedures only available south of Nunavut. A direct impact of the merger includes the cost of groceries and the cost of alleviating poverty.

Recently, the Minister of Northern Affairs showed that he will cut a portion of the nutrition north program that directly helps people to feed each other. The Minister of Northern Affairs is opting to subsidize CEOs and larger for-profit corporations by keeping that portion without review and without consideration for alleviating poverty.

When the Conservatives were in power, food prices went up by 25%. What does this mean? Here are some examples of some prices that went up: ground beef went up by 128%; coffee went up 89%; apples, and we all know that the Conservatives love apples, went up by 43%.

When the Conservatives were in power, what went down in that same period were the taxes that corporate grocery stores paid, that is, the Conservatives gave massive tax giveaways to the richest corporations, hurting Canadians and benefiting their rich friends.

It does not have to be this way. The leader for the NDP, said, in introducing this bill:

That is why we are putting forward our bill, the lowering prices for Canadians act, which would bring down prices for Canadians, take power away from those greedy CEOs and give it back to the working people.

The NDP is fighting for Canadians who are suffering the increasing cost of living allowed by the Liberal government. The Liberals and the Conservatives will show their commitment to Canadians when they vote on Bill C-352.

I ask the same questions that the NDP leader asked:

Do they stand with their rich CEO friends or will they stand with working class Canadians? Will they stand with workers, families and people who are having a hard time buying groceries?

As our leader did, I too invite the Liberals and Conservatives to stop listening to their CEO friends, start listening to working Canadians and support our bill to bring down prices for all Canadians. This NDP bill would stop mergers that end up hurting Canadians, like the merger of Rogers and Shaw, which reduces competition, increases prices and means a loss of jobs.

This NDP bill would increase penalties for consumer scams and help grocery stores by protecting them from the anti-competitive tactics used by big chains.

This NDP bill would give the Competition Bureau more power to crack down on abuses such as price gouging and would stop mergers that reduce competition and hurt Canadians.

As a result of greedy corporations making huge profits, Canadians are struggling. When we ask Canadians, they agree. They believe the number one reason driving up the cost of groceries is more money going into the pockets of rich CEOs.

The NDP leader believes, as do I, that we need more competition and not less. I believe we need more protections for consumers and not more power for CEOs. That is exactly what our bill would do.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my two colleagues who spoke before me. I really appreciated both of their interpretations of this particular bill and the meaning that it has.

I am here today to speak to our leader's bill, Bill C-352, which talks about amending the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act to increase competition and lower prices for Canadians.

My husband's culture is the most northern Coast Salish in Canada. Their nation is Homalco. One of the things that they and their teachings are very clear in is that greed is actually considered a profound illness. If a member of their community shows greed in holding on to wealth, there is a lot of work done to help that person not be in that place of greed. The reason they feel this is an important issue is that the core value of their community is “together we are stronger”. If somebody is suffering, then it is a weight upon all of us to make sure that we lift that person up and support them in the way that they need to be supported.

Unfortunately, that is not the system that we currently see in Canada. I think most Canadians know the reality that the system is rigged to support the very, very wealthy, the one per cent people of Canada. We see this not just in Canada but also in many other countries. We know it is extremely unfair. What bothers me the most about how our system is rigged right now is that the wage earnings of everyday Canadians continue to be stagnant, while the very wealthy are seeing huge increases in their wage earnings and their incomes. We have seen this in a lot of statistics. This tells us that everyday Canadians are going to continue to struggle, because the greed in this country is out of control. That is where we are.

We can look at what is happening in our grocery stores right now, where people are really struggling to be able to afford the basic things they need to feed their families and to be treated with dignity. I bring this up a lot in this House, but I think there should be a bar of dignity in this country. I believe that fits in with the teachings from the Homalco people. They understand that everybody deserves dignity. If somebody has a strength or a weakness, they find a way to celebrate what is good and strong. They find ways to support and love through those weak moments. We are not seeing that right now. We are seeing a lot of people who are doing everything right. They are following the rules that they think are fair. They see themselves falling further and further behind. That makes me think of a lot of young people, who are worried about the fact that they may not be able to afford a home or to ever have a livable wage that will give them the ability to build the things in their life that they want to build.

As we look at this system and acknowledge that it is rigged, the worst thing that we can do is to say we should just not have a system to address that. I like to believe the best of people. I tend to be a fairly trusting person. I believe in the essential good in everyone. However, I also know that, if there is a system that does not keep engaging and making sure that things are fair, there are people who would turn that system to feed themselves at the expense of other people. That is what we have right now.

We are watching people like Galen Weston walk away with multimillion-dollar raises while the workers at Loblaws cannot even afford to buy groceries at the store they work in. We are seeing more people struggling to pay for basic groceries, but we are also seeing much higher outcomes and profits for these grocery stores. It is frustrating that we can see this out-of-touch Liberal Party that calls them in and says to them nicely, “Can you stop raising your prices? It's really hurting the Canadian consumer”. That is talk, but it does not actually say that it is not fair and there is going to be something put into place that makes it fair.

Then we have the corporate-controlled Conservatives. They, quite honestly, have 50% of their governing body as lobbyists for greedy CEOs. That is whom they are talking to. That is their leadership. That is who is helping them plot their own course, moving forward. This worries me, because it means that everyday people doing everything right are continuing to be marginalized because our systems do not hold those folks to account.

What would this bill do? The first thing it would do is increase penalties for price fixing. We all know about this. We know sometimes prices are fixed and consumers are paying way more than they should. When I look at this, it reminds me of the reality that Loblaws recently tried to decide that instead of selling almost-expired food at 50% off, it was going to take only 30% off. It is nickel-and-diming people who are struggling and doing their best every day to get by, and taking away every opportunity for something they can afford.

The other thing the bill would do is help smaller grocery stores by protecting them against anti-competitive tactics from bigger players. Let us be honest. We all know this, especially people in small businesses. When there is a player in town that is a really big corporation with tons of resources, it can undermine them really easily. We need something in place that keeps things on a level playing field.

We also know that businesses that are within a certain radius of a big grocery store and offer a lower price for the consumer are told they cannot do it, because it is anti-competitive. What happens is that those businesses have to raise their prices, even though they could give it to somebody at a lower price. That is wrong, and it is those big corporate giants coming for people who work hard, care about their community and try to make things affordable, and taking away their ability to do that. The bill would fix that.

The bill would also give the Competition Bureau more powers to crack down on abuse like price gouging consumers. This is a real thing. The Conservatives will tell us it is all just about the carbon tax, but when we look at the stats, which I will get to a little later, we see a huge amount of corporate profits made in the last little while. Even with taxes going up, these corporations are still drawing in way more than they did back in 2020. That worries me and tells me they are using this opportunity to mislead Canadians and tell them they need to pay more, even when they do not need to. That is because we do not have strong enough anti-competition laws in this country.

The other thing the bill would do is stop mergers that decrease competition and hurt Canadians. We have just seen this, with Rogers taking over Shaw. Rogers promised it would not raise its prices, and what did it do? It just recently raised prices.

One of the things about Canada that concerns me is that we do not ever see a government, whether it be Liberal or Conservative, take on this real issue of competition and make sure that when people are getting scammed, it does something about it. Governments are just too nice, because they know where their money comes from. That is what I will say in this House. It is shocking.

Right now, there are five companies for grocery stores: Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Costco and Walmart. They dominate. There are little ones every once in a while, and in B.C. we lost some of those small grocery stores, which have been picked up by Sobeys. This is shocking. It means those five just talk to each other and decide how much they want to get out of a certain area. There are no more little grocery stores on the corner, doing their best to keep the costs down. The big grocery stores can just wipe them out.

That is what is happening in this country, and the consumers are paying. The people who work the hardest are paying the most. A person who is making $250,000 a year is not going to care if the grocery store prices go up, but someone who is making only $20,000 or $30,000, and there are a lot of seniors living on that amount in this country, is certainly going to feel it. They are going to be making terrible, terrible decisions that no Canadian with any ounce of dignity here could see taken.

I want to remind everybody that margins generally increase by one to two percentage points. This is where it has been at. Now we are seeing huge increases. We know that the three largest grocery stores combined, Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro, in 2022 made more than $3.6 billion in profits. While everyday Canadians are suffering, the reality is that we do not have a system that is going to be making it fair for everyday Canadians.

I hope everybody in this House supports this bill, so we can make things fair for Canadians, because they certainly deserve it when they are doing everything right.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of Bill C-352, which seeks to amend the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act to increase competition and lower prices for Canadians.

In order to do this in a way that builds confidence for Canadians, one must understand the philosophies of the Liberal and Conservative parties. Canadians are going to be shocked to find that they are actually quite similar in their approach to the market and how the needs and wants of Canadians are met or not met, in many cases.

We know that Canadians across the country, both unionized and non-unionized labour, are falling further behind, yet they are doing everything right. Some of them have to pick up extra jobs or take a side gig while missing time with their families, not having the chance to see their kids off to bed or being able to see them in the morning. They are just working too hard.

No Canadian, no matter where they are, from coast to coast to coast, should have to work more than one full-time job in order to put a roof over their head, food on their plate and to make sure their kids have what they need. That is the promise that New Democrats have been consistent about. We know that the material wealth and the material need of Canadians is paramount to how they participate in our democracy.

Our great tradition in Canada is a democratic one that says that each and every one of us, no matter who we are, where we live, how much we make or who we love, has a chance to participate, that Canada is our home. As a matter of fact, Canadians from every corner of our country have died for this promise. Those who bravely fought overseas during World War II fought the terrible, fascist regime of the Nazis to stand up for the very basic principles that we all stand for today. Those principles say that we should be able to participate in our democracy without hindrance and without discrimination.

However, we have not done the work to ensure that the social rights of those individuals are met so that they could actually enjoy the democratic rights that they are granted. How do we fulfill the social rights of Canadians? It is particularly important to delineate the wants and needs of Canadians. It is important to ensure that we have housing, food, clean water and an environment where we can actually breathe fresh air. These are not things that Canadians should lack or have to beg for. They should not have to work four jobs for these things. They should just work one and be able to get the social supports to exercise their democratic rights.

The Conservatives and the Liberals have an interesting philosophy when it comes to the market. They say that we should just incentivize every single billionaire out there to do the government's job of helping people. We spoke, for example, to the real estate executives in our country. They have been clear that they cannot solve the housing crisis we are seeing in Canada. I wish that the Liberals and Conservatives would listen to that.

Those who are motivated to make money in the housing sector have said that they cannot create the conditions for all Canadians to have a home. When we hear that, it is up to social democrats to then say the failures of liberal policies, both the liberal policies of the Conservatives and the liberal policies of the Liberals are actually challenged, that we introduce the social democratic principles that are important to ensuring that they get the true wealth transfer that is required to exercise their democratic rights.

It has often been commented, especially today in the 21st century, particularly by my generation, that there is a lack of understanding of that in this place. We no longer debate these principles. All we hear from the Conservatives is slogans, four of them. They will not even speak about the fact that their philosophy to motivate the private market is failing here at this stage that we are in in capitalism, which is the ultimate late-stage capitalism that has billionaires and oligarchies across our country controlling the exclusive means of production.

When that happens, what we see is price fixing, price gouging and people falling behind. I wish that my Liberal and Conservative colleagues would take this seriously. Instead, what we are going to hear for many more months to come from every single Conservative on that side is four slogans. Those four slogans will be said over and over again. They will not even engage in the reality of their tradition of working with the Liberals to pat the backs of their lobbyist friends. Now they are upset because we are calling that out.

Conservatives and Liberals are upset because they will not admit that, for consecutive decades in our country, they have benefited from the immense tax breaks they have given their friends. It is very clear that the chief strategist for the Conservative Party, a lobbyist for Loblaws, is in this exact position. I am sure that the strategic advice from the Conservatives' chief strategist is to not take into account the reality that her boss, Galen Weston, is gouging Canadians and fixing the price of bread.

We need more courage in this place in order to understand these circumstances and to bring forward good ideas because Canadians are running out of hope due to not hearing solutions. They are hearing the problem. To give credit to the Conservatives, I think they have done a good job outlining the concerns and the feelings of Canadians. That is something we agree on. We agree that Canadians are falling behind. We agree that Canadians are being price gouged. We agree that housing is more unaffordable now than ever, but we disagree with the solutions.

We know that taking four cents off a $100 basket of groceries is just not going to cut it. Cutting the carbon tax is four cents off a $100 basket of groceries. GST is higher than that. New Democrats are consistent in our approach that the immense record profits of these companies that are not held accountable need to be reined in. We need to break up these oligarchies. We need to support our small and medium-sized businesses. We need to fill the social gap that exists when we allow megacorporations to continue with their never-ending and continuous appetite against working people in our country.

I invite members of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party to engage with New Democrats in this debate in a meaningful way beyond slogans. They need to present more solutions. This is one of them, and we hope they support it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, February 7, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

It being 1:10 p.m., the House stands adjourned until next Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 1:10 p.m.)