Finance committee  Things are improving. On the container front, marine transport costs are down 40% to 50% from the spring, so marine supply chains are more efficient. Land-based supply chains are less costly and more efficient because of more predictable market conditions, which are the result of

Finance committee  Every sector of the economy is affected in the same way, including agriculture. Agriculture needs investment, and that's a risk that has to be taken, unfortunately. There's no doubt that interest rates are going to affect how farmers assess and manage risk. I think that's a good

Finance committee  A stronger processing sector is absolutely necessary. We don't do a lot of processing. We export a huge amount of raw materials, and that makes us more vulnerable. We need a food self-sufficiency policy, like the one Quebec has. Quebec puts a lot more energy into processing. The

Finance committee  The first thing is that we need to stop flying in the dark. We need data. Right now, a lot of people are saying all sorts of things without really any data. I had the pleasure of working in Europe and in the U.S., where getting data is much easier than it is in Canada. In Canad

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I would like to thank you for inviting me again for this important discussion on food affordability. As food prices rise, many are quick to blame grocers for profiteering and taking advantage of consumers. The notion of profiteering ha

Agriculture committee  Yes, it did, actually. As a lab, it's been extremely difficult and, frankly, frustrating to utilize StatsCan's data. Over the last several months, it's been very difficult to know exactly whether or not the food inflation data is actually accurate. We have partners at the lab a

Agriculture committee  It would. There are lots of reporting practices at StatsCan that really are, I think, questionable. For example, if you just look right now at the data that came out for October, you will see that we still don't have the basket of goods for the month of October. We don't know if

Agriculture committee  Well, for the front-of-package labelling policy, it's too early to tell. We still don't have anything right now at the grocery store influencing behaviour. As far as the carbon tax goes, it's actually mentioned in today's report that we're releasing along with the University of

Agriculture committee  I wish I knew the answer. I think that's the coefficient we need to get to, at least for the government to better understand exactly what the impact is going to be. We've seen some polices in recent years that are, honestly, unfairly penalizing farmers. Farmers are price-takers

Agriculture committee  That would be fair to say. It is an important hypothesis to recognize.

Agriculture committee  I think it is. We have to understand what is happening at present better. For several years, British Columbia and Quebec had a carbon tax, but all the provinces in Confederation now have to follow suit. It is time to do it.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  We decide the subjects we want to cover. We have four major partners, and together, we examine certain issues that we have the resources to study, but our studies are not funded by partners like the Retail Council of Canada or Loblaw, for example.

Agriculture committee  No. They are BetterCart Analytics, NielsenIQ, Angus Reid Institute and Caddle Inc.

Agriculture committee  It is very difficult to establish. Each product that has a reference number has its own history and proportions. It is therefore very difficult to say what is going on in general or to give an average. I can tell you that in general, the profit margins for retail sales are extre