Debates of June 3rd, 2024

Finance

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, here we are tonight in a concurrence debate. There was a report from the finance committee on grocery stores and a recommendation to the House to create some kind of extra profit tax. It came out of the finance committee, but the Conservatives have a better solution that we have offered through an amendment to the report. We think that there is a more effective, more efficient, quicker and easier way for Parliament and for the government to improve the ability of Canadians to afford food than getting into the tax change they are proposing. In our motion, we “recommend a more efficient alternative to address food insecurity among Canadians this summer by calling on the government to eliminate the carbon tax, the federal fuel tax and GST on gasoline and diesel between now and Labour Day.” That is what we are debating tonight.

I share concerns that have been raised about the concentration of grocery retailing in Canada. I am very concerned, under the current government, about the extent to which competition has been reduced in a variety of sectors, including banking and telecoms. The Canadian consumer would be better served, I am certain, with better and more competition for retail of groceries, but the government could fix or at least address the growing number of Canadians who are food-insecure, though let us not mess around with labels here and say “food insecurity”. Let us just get real. People are hungry. People are skipping meals. People are compromising on the quality of ingredients they buy. We have seen it. There are countless studies that have come out showing that it is affecting millions of Canadians. There are people hungry in Canada in 2024.

The government could do something immediately that would improve the personal finances of Canadians and help consumers to afford more and better food, and that is to get rid of all the taxes. That would to bring down their transportation costs, which would free up more money for food, and it also would directly impact the price of food.

We have been calling for relief from the carbon tax in many ways from the government. In fact, the House of Commons has passed a bill that would have taken the carbon tax entirely off farmers so they would not have to pay the carbon tax to heat barns and buildings and to dry grain, and for all of these kinds of things. The other place amended the bill, gutted it and took out one of the most critical parts of it: the buildings and the barns. That is something that could be done too, but if the government would just listen and accept the advice in a motion that we voted on today and get rid of the carbon tax, the federal fuel tax, the GST on gasoline and diesel, we could bring down costs for consumers.

That would be so important for so many reasons. It would help both the producers and the consumers. A consumer has basic costs: shelter, food, clothing and transportation. The carbon tax directly impacts all of these things, but especially food and transportation. It does not matter whether someone owns a car or not; the carbon tax and the other federal taxes on fuel affect the ability of municipalities to run transit systems, so even if someone takes the bus, they would benefit from the proposal that the Conservatives have to send back to the finance committee.

If someone does have to drive their car to get to the grocery store or to take their children to activities or school, then reducing their budget for transportation is going to help make up what is available for food, shelter or other needs. A Canadian who is at least able to get by, and can actually, on a month-to-month basis, afford the home they live in and afford to keep a car on the road and food in the fridge, might want to just take a little vacation this summer. The proposal would help Canadians who are struggling and who just want to put the kids in the car, as the health minister talked about in question period the other day, and drive out to the mountains, the lake or the beach, depending on where they live and what kinds of things they have nearby for recreation.

This is Canadiana; it is what Canadians do. They get out and go to see the beautiful country that we live in. We live in such a beautiful land with so much to offer for summer recreation, or winter recreation for that matter, or any recreation at any time of year. Why not celebrate the outdoors and celebrate the people of this country? Why not be able to go visit a relative? I plan to go on a road trip this summer. I am not planning a major vacation or anything, but I hope to have a chance to visit relatives who live in other parts of the country and to maybe get out to the mountains west of Calgary. It is what Canadians do.

The least the government could do is not make the basics more expensive for Canadians. A Canadian who can save a little bit of money on their fuel to go on a trip this summer is just going to have more money in their bank account for other things. However, the approach of the government has been to tax and regulate the economy to the point where we are at the very bottom of the G7 for per capita GDP growth, because our per capita GDP growth is not growth at all; it is contraction. Per capita, we are going backwards. Per capita, Canadians are getting poorer. Canadians are going backwards while life gets more expensive. It is a spiral that we need to get out of.

The only way we are going to get out of it is with a change of government. It is the only way forward, so that we can fix the budget and be able to get serious about the basic core responsibilities of government, like national defence, public safety, and ensuring that health transfers will be there in the years ahead. We are spending more now on interest than on health transfers. We spend far more on interest than we do on national defence.

We are going to need a strong economy. We are going to need new investment. We are going to need regulatory relief and tax relief to make these things happen. The only way we are going to get out of the spiral and see Canadians' per capita income go up instead of down in the years ahead is with a new signal for strong economic leadership. We have to get rid of the gatekeepers who are destroying the ability for anyone to get projects approved in this country.

There has been capital flight. There has been the cancellation of projects, which has been ongoing for the last nine years. There is a carbon tax that continually goes up, is piled on Canadians and interferes with their ability to do basic things like afford groceries; get in their car, put some gas in the tank and go on a small trip; or even just get themselves to work and back on a day-to-day basis.

We need to get away from the continual regime of further and greater red tape, regulation and taxes, and get back to a country that can work and where people's work is rewarded, where people can afford to live and where people can afford their homes, groceries and transportation.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member's speech, and I kept hearing about the price on pollution going up.

The member is misleading Canadians by saying that there is this price on pollution but is leaving out the part about how this price is returned to Canadians through rebates, and the rebates also continue to go up. Eight out of 10 Canadians will receive more money than they spend on the price on pollution.

This is in order to incentivize people to make different decisions. This is exactly what we as a society are going to have to do. We are going to have to make extremely difficult decisions, and we are going to have to decrease our reliance on unsustainable energies.

Once again, could the member tell us what the Conservative plan on climate change is?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot to unpack there.

We will see who is misleading Canadians. In my speech, I was very clear. I talked about the carbon tax. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has debunked the member's assertion about what people get back versus what they pay. Take into account the economic cost of the carbon tax, and that is what it is: a tax. Canadians pay far more than they get back.

The member would have Canadians believe that somehow the government can put a tax on and then give more back to people than they pay, but Canadians are not buying this. It is not correct. It is misleading of the member to characterize it in those terms.

Let us take this to Canadians. Let us have the carbon tax election, and we will see what Canadians have to say.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I always like hearing from the member. I have worked with him over the years.

I am a little confused, though, by the Conservatives. They offered up the idea that there would be some money saved on gas, potentially, but the figures they used quoted driving about 44,000 kilometres. What they seem to be proposing is that there could be these savings if Canadians drove back and forth across Canada eight times over the course of the summer. That seems to me to be pretty excessive. I am not sure it would be a lot of fun for a family to be trapped in the car going right across Canada eight times, and that would be in a two-week period, to save a couple of hundred dollars.

That being said, the NDP is offering substantial savings, thousands of dollars, in terms of pharmacare and thousands of dollars in terms of dental care. Many people in the member's riding are taking advantage of that. Why are the Conservatives not supporting the NDP in all these things that would actually make a real difference in the lives of his constituents.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly pathetic to see the House leader of the NDP literally reciting, verbatim, Liberal talking points. If the member would stop supporting the government, we could have a carbon tax election and could sort out where Canadians want to go.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am actually going to ask my colleague the same question that he asked me.

Why does he think that there seems to be this kind of attack toward families and not wanting to give them the opportunity to have a good time, basically to have fun?

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals reflexively blame Canadians for issues. They would literally say, as the Minister for Health said, that if a Canadian family wants to take their kids on a vacation, then it is all on them. It is their fault, and they are bad people for wanting to put the kids in the car to go on a road trip. They turn around and blame Canadians, using this inflammatory-type language about the planet being on fire. Conservatives just want parents to be able to take their kids on a road trip.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Milton.

Today, we are discussing a motion that was passed in committee and sent over to the House. It is a report specifically on excess profit tax on large grocery companies. It states:

Given that the Canadian grocery sector made more than $6 billion in profit in 2023 and that millions of Canadians have reported food insecurity in the last year, the Standing Committee on Finance call on the government to immediately take action by implementing an excess profit tax on large grocery companies that would put money back in the people's pocket with a GST rebate and establish a National School Food Program, and that this motion be reported to the House.

My understanding, based on going back and looking at the committee minutes, is that this was supported by all the Liberal, Bloc and NDP members on the committee. I think it is a really good motion.

I certainly agree with the motion, especially with the part on the national school food program. This is a program that has organically come from communities and from Canadians. I know I heard NDP members say earlier that this was their initiative. I actually do not think that it was. I think that this was an initiative that was born out of need, but also born out of what was already taking place in so many communities.

In the city of Kingston, we have the Food Sharing Project, which has been around since the eighties. Basically, it is a volunteer organization led by Andy Mills in Kingston. Every day, its members pack up food and send it out to schools.

One of the most interesting things that I found, and one of the reasons I thought this was an incredible program, was this. When I toured the program, I brought my children with me, Frankie and Vivian, who are seven and five. Frankie suddenly realized where the food was coming from that he would see in school.

I really thought the program was unique. What made this program so incredibly successful, and why the government needed to fund this program, was because it helps to break down stigmas and stereotypes. According to my children, it is not just the “poor kids” who have access to this food. As a matter of fact, according to my daughter, who is in senior kindergarten, there are often discussions about which piece of food or which granola bar they are going to get from the special snack station.

My point is that this is something that all kids look at and think is normal. It is not associated to or creating stereotypes that some kids need this food and others do not. I think that is incredibly powerful. At such an early age, children should be taught not to judge others based on their needs. That is why I supported this.

That is why when people from my community came to see me to really push the federal government to put this program into this particular budget, it was something that I worked with them on. I barely did anything, but my constituents went to all the schools, collected petitions and garnered support. They gave those petitions to me so I could present them to the House.

I imagine that similar things happened in communities throughout Canada. I really look at the national school food program as a grassroots program that has taken hold based on need, based on a desire to break down stereotypes, and based on treating all kids equally at such a young age. That is what we have.

The other part of this motion speaks specifically to an excess profit tax. I have been asked many times by my NDP colleagues how I feel about an excess profit tax. On the surface level, I have nothing against it. In particular, when we are dealing with an industry that has very few players, effectively we have a joint monopoly or an oligopoly, and they are basically setting prices. The grocery industry has been found guilty in the past of fixing prices. We remember the bread-fixing scheme that went on a number of years ago. Whether it is out of malice and is intended, or whether it just grows out of the lack of competition, it still happens.

Therefore, when we talk about an excess profit tax, and I know we talk about it from the oil industry perspective too, I am really intrigued by having the discussion, because I think it is one that is important to have, but I have a question and a concern. I tried to ask the House leader for the NDP a question, but he did not answer, about what happens when and if the oligopoly partners end up just transferring that tax over to consumers. If we have so few players in the industry, let us say there are three major players, Loblaws being one of them, and we add this tax on, what is to stop them from just marginally increasing everything again to cover the tax? Then we have not accomplished what we set out to do; we have not met the objective.

Maybe there is an easy answer to this. Maybe the NDP would say that if we do a particular thing then it will prevent that from happening. That is what I was trying to understand earlier when I was asking the question. Maybe my concern can be put to rest very easily by addressing that point. Therefore, I want to have conversations about this excess profit tax on these large industries like the grocery and oil industries, but I want to do it in a responsible way. I want to do it in a way that ensures that whatever comes out of it actually produces the intended result, which is to return some of these excess profits created out of the monopolistic environment back to the consumers who are being taken advantage of in the practice of the monopoly or oligopoly. That is my main concern with respect to this. I would love to have a conversation about how the NDP would ensure that does not happen.

On the surface, I certainly appreciate this. I understand that the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc members all voted in favour of this. I think on a surface level it makes a lot of sense. There are some details that I would like to understand a little more clearly before I vote on this, but I will say that the national school food program is an incredible program that I know already works because I see a volunteer version of it at our local level and I know of the success it can create. I think it would help with food insecurity and with breaking down stereotypes. It will also give young children who are growing up the best shot at life and their educational experience if they are not going to school hungry.

I find it very concerning that Conservatives, who will likely vote against this because of their connection to large companies, tend to raise the alarm bells on food bank usage, but then literally in the next action will not do anything to actually help people who are faced with food insecurity. With respect to the national school food program, before any money was even put behind it, when it was just a concept, they voted against it. They have indicated that they will vote against this budget, which includes money for that. It would be easy for them to separate out the items of the budget they do support and vote in favour of those, but they do not because it just seems that they are insistent on not doing anything that possibly could give this government a win.

I will leave it at that. I look forward to listening to the rest of the debate on this and coming to a conclusion as to how I will vote when we are asked to vote on this, I presume tomorrow.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did answer my colleague's question. The reality is that if companies try to gouge again and pass those costs on to consumers, the excess profit tax kicks in. That is why, during the Second World War, the excess profit tax that was put into place as a tool at that time did not ignite or engender any passing on of those costs to consumers. It is the same principle, so I did answer his question.

My question for the member is this. Given Conservatives are refusing even to participate, as they are not in the House, and are refusing to talk about the issue of school lunches—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. member is an experienced member and knows that we should not make reference to the presence, or otherwise, of members in the House. Of course, they have many things to do.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am so sorry. I should not mention that there is not a single Conservative here. That is true—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Very well done. That reminds me of a great old political joke that I will not repeat here.

I would ask the hon. member to move on to his question.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives do not seem to have an interest in national school lunches or in an excess profits tax, and I want to ask my colleague whether that is because the corporate Conservatives are so entrenched with lobbyists. The national director, or the campaign manager, for the member for Carleton and the Conservative Party is a lobbyist for Loblaw and has been very much involved in promoting a company that is food price gouging. The deputy leader of the Conservative Party is, again, a corporate Conservative and engaged in the lobbying that has led to food price gouging.

Is that why the Conservatives are so uninterested in the debate and not wanting to intervene in any way? Is it because the corporate Conservatives are just lobbyists right up to their chin?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member certainly knows how to set up a question for me. My understanding is that the leader of the NDP's brother is also a lobbyist for Loblaw. However, I digress. I will not take it—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby is rising on a point of order.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is simply not true.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

That would not be considered a point of order.

The hon. member from Kingston and the Islands.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to go back to the serious part of this. I did hear the member talking about the excess profit tax after World War II. I do not necessarily disagree with it, but I did not understand correctly whether that was in an industry that had monopoly-type practices like the one we are talking about right now, the grocery sector. Implementing a tax like that on a sector that does not have any kind of monopolistic practices associated with it and is operating in a more free market would not necessarily produce the same results. That, I guess, would be my concern.

I do think that we would have to be careful. It is easy to say that if they increase the prices, we will just increase the tax more, but where does that end? It could turn into a revolving cycle of just continually seeing prices going up, taxes going up and prices going up again. At the end of the day, there needs to be enough competition. I do not even hold it against the individual CEOs. They are doing what our capitalist market is intending them to do. When government needs to step in is when there is not free supply and demand, depending on how the prices are being met. That is when the government needs to be there, and I think that is a very important consideration.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in all of the debate about excess profits for large grocery stores, I am really puzzled by this one fundamental question. That is, in the supply chain, there are costs added everywhere, with input costs added at every stage. Everybody along the supply chain is making money somewhere along the line. Why pick on the very last person in the supply chain? Why not look at all the others as well?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, I do not think that the vast majority of the profits are being made lower down on the supply chain. I think that what we are seeing, which is indicative of a market that has only a few players in it, is that it is the few players that are going to jack up their prices, because they can. If, farther down the supply chain there is a supplier of something, or there are 10 suppliers of something, because there are so many of them, they are going to be incentivized to ensure that they are being competitive. It is not the same scenario when there are only a few grocery retailers, which is what we have.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to join the debate this evening on an issue that is affecting so many Canadians, I would say every Canadian, because everybody needs to eat. Our groceries just cost too much these days. Everybody is frustrated, and I understand why.

Food is an essential item. It is not as though people can just decide to take a couple of weeks off. Groceries are probably the third or fourth-most expensive thing that a household has to purchase every month, after paying rent or a mortgage and after paying for a vehicle. Food is expensive, and there are a lot of reasons for the fact that food is expensive. This evening, I was hoping I could unpack a few of those root causes a little and could get to some questions. With some colleagues, the art of thoughtful conversation and a little debate sometimes feels like it has lost its touch around here.

What can we do as a government? People ask us all the time. We knock on their doors or we answer the phone at the office, and people say, “Lettuce is $3.50 again. What the heck?” I do not blame people for being frustrated. I am frustrated too. One of the chief complaints I hear is that people are frustrated because they hear that grocery executives are being paid millions of dollars and that the people who work in those stores are still earning minimum wage. It does not seem fair, and it is not, quite frankly.

However, it is clear to me that regardless of who works for lobbying firms, and I will not argue about who works where; everybody deserves honest work. The reality is that these big companies can afford lobbyists and that they can afford lobbyists because they make a lot of money. Whether we are talking about private utility companies, oil and gas companies, grocery chains or big banks, for that matter, those companies can afford to spend a lot of that money on government relations and on PR.

Those who cannot are Food Banks Canada, teachers, nurses, parents and people who are struggling to pay their bills. There is no public lobbyist who says that their neighbours are really struggling. In fact, that is us. We need to have our ears to the ground. We need to be there for our neighbours. We need to listen to their issues, and then do a little bit of research.

I often talk, probably not enough in this place, about the Library of Parliament, which is such a wonderful resource that we all have access to. They do great work. They do excellent research. It is completely non-partisan, and it is extraordinary. The people who work over there, the researchers, the clerks and the librarians, are amazing.

I am going to commit to work with the Library of Parliament for the remainder of this session to try to dive into precisely why some grocery prices are so high. I have done a little research, which was very preliminary. I will say it is not research because when we Google something, that is not research. Research is actually meant to have some rigour, and a Google search does not. It is just a little reading.

I have done some light reading on why grocery prices are expensive. Climate change is the number one reason. Disruptions, extreme weather, floods and droughts, all of those things are costing food production and farmers a lot of money. That needs to be addressed, and we know that we cannot just switch climate change on or off like a light switch, despite the Conservatives talking about carbon pricing. They ask if we pay a carbon price, will it stop a hurricane or will it stop a wildfire? It is absurd.

It is an absolutely absurd question or statement, but it does not stop the Conservatives from making that sort of comparison; if we pay the price on pollution, then it will just stop the crazy weather. That is not the way it works. The crazy weather that we are experiencing is a result of an excessive amount of greenhouse gases in our environment and in our atmosphere. Just like a greenhouse that has a lot of CO2 inside because there are a lot of plants in there, it heats up. Our planet has been heating up, not in a uniform way, but one that contributes to a lot of extreme weather, and it disrupts agriculture.

Another significant cause of disruption of the agriculture sector is conflict. We know that around the world, there is a lot of fighting. Some of those countries that are fighting produce a heck of a lot of food. When they are at war, they are not able to ship their raw goods, and that increases the cost of food.

Then there are some more localized issues here at home. I remember, probably a decade ago, getting a weird little $25 gift card in the mail, which was unmarked. It was because the price of bread was fixed by some of the largest grocery chains. They were colluding with each other. It was due to unfair practices and really bad corporate behaviour. They settled out of court, and asked if they sent $25 to everybody who asked for it, would that be enough? Somebody, in their infinite wisdom, said that it ought to do.

I do not think any laws were changed. An ombudsman was not put in place to make sure that grocery prices did not just fly off the shelf, literally. That continues to happen. There has to be a way, with a little more scrutiny.

My community members, over the month of May, decided not to shop at Loblaws stores, and there was a big boycott. I do not know if it was across Ontario or Canada, but I saw a lot of people online talking about how they were not shopping at Loblaws. One does not need to do research, but just a cursory Google search on all the stores that the Loblaw company owns, to see that it is a lot of places. It is actually hard in many communities to avoid shopping at Loblaws.

Something I have noticed is that Loblaws owns Shoppers Drug Mart and, not that recently, Shoppers Drug Mart started to sell more and more produce and fresh food in addition to shelved items, like cereal and canned soups. My example is about canned soup, because when I go to that aisle in Shoppers Drug Mart, I can find a can of tomato soup priced at $2.49, $2.69, $2.79, but if I go to No Frills, which is owned by the exact same company, I will see exactly the same soup in a can for 99¢ or $1.29. The issue I have with that is not so much that we can say that Shoppers is maybe a little more of a convenience store, but that people who live close to a Shoppers oftentimes do not have a car. The stores are in strip malls, and the one on Main Street in Milton is right next to a bunch of apartment buildings where people do not all have vehicles, which means they cannot drive to No Frills. It means that there is an environmental barrier to shopping at lower prices.

That is an unfair practice that I strongly believe an excess profits tax on grocery stores would penalize, but not necessarily fix. I will say that I am in favour of an excess profits tax on groceries, because I think the behaviour is bad. We are seeing inflated grocery prices between stores where there ought not to be. However, I also think that there needs to be some scrutiny, and an ombudsperson in the grocery sector could achieve that. I would like to address the issue of excess profits, not just tax the people who are applying them on customers.

The other thing that I think could achieve that is a grocery code of conduct. We have seen it spoken about a lot since last September. I will not say that it was a coincidence, but the same month that Loblaws was being boycotted by so many members of my community, Loblaws said it was willing to sign the grocery code of conduct, as long as some of its competition did, and I think they said Metro and Walmart.

The other issue is that there are only five or six big grocery companies in Canada, just like there are only four or five big oil and gas companies, and there are also only four or five banks in Canada, which means that the market is kind of closed. There is a little bit of an oligopoly, not quite a monopoly but something similar to that, and it is also clear that a lot of these companies kind of keep an eye on each other's prices, whether it is a service fee or a can of tomato soup. They like making money and, hey, we live in a capitalist environment, where everybody wants to make money, whether one is a lobbyist for a grocery store or the CEO of a big multinational company. Their job is to make money.

However, in this House, our job is to promote fairness, and I believe that budget 2024 does find fairness in the market, and it does demand better from big grocery and big oil and gas. It does ask those companies to find a way to have fairer practices so that they do not get caught up in a situation like they did 10 years ago when they had to mail hundreds of thousands of Canadian households a funny little blank $25 gift card to make up for the fact that they cheated them.

I will say it again: Food is an essential item. It is not as though Canadians can just choose not to go to the grocery store. Certainly, they can choose to go to a less expensive one, or they can choose to shop local or at the farmers' market, but that does not fix the problem. Fixing the problem is going to take a combination of solutions.

I am in support of an excess profit tax on grocery stores, and also oil and gas, I would add, but that does not necessarily address the issue that they are allowed to get away with it. I would like to see fairness built into the system and an ombudsperson who oversees a lot of these prices so that we can see more fairness, and I know that competition will also achieve that.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the debate tonight is on excess profits. Would my colleague from Milton be able to define what exactly would be an excess profit? For example, what would be an appropriate margin of profit for a grocery company that he has referred to this evening?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be totally frank: I am no expert on what thresholds of corporate profit should be deemed reasonable. I would leave that up to experts to determine. I would like some public input on that. I think everybody would agree that companies ought to be able to earn a profit.

I grew up in non-profit housing, so nobody made any money when my mom paid the rent. I would like to see that same system applied more broadly across our economy, because with essentials, whether it is shelter, medicine or food, there should be a way to pay a farmer directly for their work and not be facilitating the enormous profits of billionaire grocery execs. However, that is tough to find. There are stores called co-ops out there, a chain of stores, which I am not sure who owns, but I do not think they are actually co-operatives and non-profits. I would love to see more non-profit-style shopping in the grocery space.

While I am on this topic, I also know that a lot of seniors, particularly single seniors, shop for previously prepared items. They might get spaghetti and meatballs or a soup, which is not in a can and might be in a jar or a takeaway container, and HST is applied to that food. That is something that is not in our control, but I would consider looking at taking off the HST on prepared food at grocery stores. This would not be at a convenience store or for a sandwich at Subway or something like that. I am not suggesting there should not be HST on that food, but finding ways to meet Canadians where they are and lower their food costs would be a priority for me. Any good idea that somebody comes forward with is worthy of consideration and debate.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Milton mentioned some of the very real drivers of food price inflation, such as crop failures because of extreme weather, supply chain disruptions and international conflict. However, what we have seen is that, after some of those issues have resolved, after the supply chain starts moving again or the extreme weather subsides and the crops start growing again, the prices do not go down. They are quick to rise and very slow to fall. In fact, they do not fall at all.

Does he agree that we need to see grocery chains lower their prices rather than what his leader, the Prime Minister, has called for, which is simply for them to stabilize? Does he agree we are at a place where Canadians cannot bear the current prices? We understand food price inflation has slowed, and that is certainly a positive trend, but Canadians are feeling the result of months of extreme inflation that has resulted in high prices that are not subsiding.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I tend to agree with him whether we are on committee or just going for a walk down Wellington. We are both very pressed with the issue of trying to find solutions to affordability in Canada. I have noticed the same thing. For months now, a head of lettuce has been $3.49 where I shop, and I do not think it is as a result of a drought. It is because the price went up, people became used to it and the prices just kind of sat there; stores said that people were now used to paying $3.50 for lettuce. That is too expensive, and there needs to be a little more accountability.

If a price shock occurs because of any number of factors, then we understand that people need to be made whole. We can choose something else in many cases. I feel the same way about shopping seasonally. There was a big thing on Facebook a couple of weeks ago about watermelon, and everybody was freaking out about the price of watermelon, but watermelon was wildly out of season at the time. It is also appropriate that we consider the time of year when we are shopping for certain items. I enjoy the convenience of having watermelon all year, but it is also true that we can shop seasonally to save a bit of money.

The other thing I wanted to discuss is something I am not sure will come up. Most people in the House are my age, a little older or close to it. I am 42 years old. In my first job, I was working for about eight dollars an hour. These days, that is absolutely not okay, and nobody works for eight dollars an hour in Canada; however, one of the reasons things have become more expensive is that we are starting to pay people closer to a minimum livable income.

I am not saying we are there just yet. People who are working in grocery stores now are not being paid enough, but perhaps they are being paid $16 or $17 an hour; that is almost nine dollars more than we were paid 15 years or 20 years back. This is another concern that we need to feed into the system. I believe in a living wage being paid to the people who are ringing our groceries through and stocking the shelves. If that could normalize a little and balance out against the billion-dollar CEO profits and bonuses we are seeing, that would also be fair.