Parliament will examine the profits that Canadian grocery stores have recorded in recent months, in the midst of an inflationary crisis in the field of food.
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The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food unanimously adopted a motion by New Democrat Alistair MacGregor on Wednesday calling for a study on the issue.
The motion calls for the committee to launch an inquiry into “the rising cost of groceries as grocery stores make record profits,” the MP said.
“We are in a period where we are seeing excessive profits in the corporate sector, while we are in a period of historically high inflation. We all know around this table that food is an essential good. […] It forces Canadian families to make extremely difficult choices,” said Mr. MacGregor to justify the launch of this study.
During its investigation, the committee will examine us only the profits made by the large national chains of supermarkets, but also by their leaders. Their salaries will also be compared to those of their employees.
The propensity of supermarkets to use their great purchasing power to ask producers to reduce their prices will also be examined.
Representatives of the entire food distribution industry, from agricultural producers to the heads of grocery store chains, including processors, will be called as witnesses by the committee.
According to Statistics Canada, the grocery inflation rate reached 10.8% last August over a one-year period, a rate that far exceeds general inflation, established at 7.6%.
However, this unbridled jump in the cost of food smiles on the large chains, which take advantage of it to boost their profits.
Thus, Empire Company, which notably owns Sobeys, Safeway and IGA, saw its net profits soar by 27% between 2020 and 2022. Loblaw, which owns Provigo, Maxi, Loblaws and Real Canadian Superstore, among others, has for its part increased its net profit by 17.2% between 2021 and 2022, compared to 7.8% for Métro during the same period, listed Alistair MacGregor before the committee.
