Agriculture committee  As I mentioned several times, we are in a highly competitive industry that has some very large firms, some of which are international. There are also many local independent companies representing every nationality. The industry is a free market. There are no regulatory barriers to entering our industry.

Agriculture committee  Competition is never negative. Everyone improves when there's competition.

Agriculture committee  We do care. I do care. It's a reality that affects all Canadians—everyone—so we care. We have to care because otherwise we lose customers. Therefore, we have to come up with programs that resonate with and provide value to our customers. That's what our merchandisers do every week.

Agriculture committee  We adjust our strategies. Our commercial strategies evolve constantly to meet customer needs. It's never ordinary times in our business. It's very competitive, and you have to react and be agile on your feet to gain customers, and we do. We negotiate hard with our customers. We try to mitigate the impacts of increases that we suffer.

Agriculture committee  We are delivering value to customers every day. That's what we do. That's what we committed to doing and that's what we keep on doing.

Agriculture committee  As I explained to the minister, and as we noted when we were listing the things we were doing for our consumers, we are trying to offer products that are the best possible value in a difficult context. We are very much aware of the fact that our customers have been affected by inflation.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  As I said before, for an industry code of conduct, all those involved, and particularly the major players, need to subscribe. We think that this code reflects the market conditions in which we are operating and how we work with our suppliers. We hope that some of our competitors who have been hesitating will agree to the conditions.

Agriculture committee  We are in the middle of the cost freeze—the “blackout period”, as we call it in our industry. It will end at the beginning of February. We are receiving demands for cost increases from some consumer packaged goods companies. Our team in the new year will deal with those. We'll negotiate as best we can to mitigate the cost increases they are asking for from us.

Agriculture committee  Well, that's not exactly what I said. What I said is that we take the process seriously. As we were before, and as we continue to be today, we're committed to delivering value to our customers. That's our job. That's what we're paid to do. If we don't do that, we lose customers.

Agriculture committee  As I said in my opening statement, the commitments I made to the minister at that meeting were to continue to deliver value as best we can to our customers every day. We did this before and we continue to do it today, and I think with some success. The second commitment we made was to sign this code of conduct, which is close to being finalized.

Agriculture committee  Well, we said publicly that we're willing to sign the version that's on the table today. We participated in it. One of my colleagues is on the working group along with several other people—retailers, suppliers and association representatives. The code as it stands is something that we can sign.

Agriculture committee  We have good relations with our suppliers and farmers in general. The terms of our agreements are clear. If there are any penalties—and these are in a very small minority of cases—they are per the terms of the agreements. We have not changed the way we conduct our business. I think we have good relations with those vendors.

Agriculture committee  In answer to your first question, we did participate through the Retail Council of Canada, which we are active members of. Representations have been made. Some concerns have been shared. Any regulation or tax that increases costs along the supply chain is a concern, especially in these inflationary times.

Agriculture committee  Well, we're all for the reduction of plastics. We have a lot of initiatives at Metro to reduce plastic and reduce food waste in our stores and throughout our supply chain. I think we're doing a good job. We've made a lot of progress. There's a lot of work to do. I don't know all of the specific details and timelines of this particular initiative, but as we're all concerned about rising food prices and price stabilization, I think it would be wise to consider the timelines.