Members of the House Agriculture Committee List of recommendations to the Federal Government After studying the issue over the past six months, I have decided to tackle the issue of food price fluctuations.
The committee heard testimony from a number of witnesses, including executives from Loblaw, Metro, Empire, which owns Sobeys, Walmart Canada and Costco, representatives of the agriculture and processing sectors, academics, federal officials and Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne.
In a report titled “A Call to Action: How Government and Industry Can Combat Food Price Volatility,” the Agriculture Committee recommended that the government pass Bill C-234, which would repeal the federal carbon tax on propane and natural gas used on farms, several measures aimed at promoting competition, implementing a food code of conduct, and policies to address “excessive net profits” in monopoly and oligopoly sectors of the food chain, including agricultural inputs.
Here are the 10 recommendations:
1. Temporary Foreign Workers
The Committee notes the particular importance of temporary foreign workers in the agriculture and agri-food sector and recommends that the Government of Canada reduce the administrative burden associated with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and make permanent the Certified Employer Pilot Program introduced in Budget 2022.
2. Border Inspection and Quality Standards
The Committee recommends that the Canadian government increase staffing and conduct regular border inspections to ensure compliance, and require imported products to meet the same quality standards as domestic products (including environmental, labour and growing standards), while ensuring the government complies with its trade obligations.
3. Bill C-234
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada support the passage of Bill C-234, as adopted by this Committee, without amendment.
4. Labeling Regulations
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada review its front-of-pack labeling regulations to better balance public health objectives with industry concerns about the cost of complying within the proposed deadlines and the impact this will have on food prices for consumers.
5. Plastic food packaging
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada work with industry to ensure that there are commercially available, affordable alternatives to price look-up (PLU) stickers and other major plastic food packaging products before implementing the proposed Pollution Prevention Plan Notice.
6. Food insecurity
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada take the following measures to assist food insecure Canadians:
– Review the Northern Nutrition Program to ensure it fulfills its mission of providing affordable food to residents and that subsidies to retailers are being used appropriately.
– Reassess Canada’s food policy objectives for 2017, with a focus on food affordability.
7. Grocery Code of Conduct
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada establish a process to engage with the provinces and territories to discuss the development of legislation that would apply the Grocery Code while respecting provincial and territorial jurisdiction.
8. Excessive Net Profit
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada consider implementing policies to effectively address excessive net profits in monopoly and oligopoly sectors of the food supply chain that are driving up food prices for consumers and input costs for farmers.
9. Legal reform
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada strengthen competition law by making the following legislative changes:
– Establish a structural presumption to streamline merger cases by shifting the burden to the merging parties to prove why a merger that significantly increases concentration will not substantially lessen or impede competition.
– Reconsider the remedy threshold to provide that remedies must ensure that pre-merger competitive conditions are maintained, to prevent merging parties from accumulating market power and causing harm to the economy through Competition Tribunal remedies.
– Review the rules on Competition Tribunal decisions to ensure their consistency with the Competition Bureau’s merger recommendations.
– Empowering the Competition Tribunal to issue orders unwinding completed mergers or prohibiting a merger from proceeding if the merger would result in an excessive market share.
10. Growing competition in the food industry
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada continue to pursue and promote greater competition within Canada’s grocery industry to stabilize and lower food prices, particularly by identifying and eliminating barriers that prevent new businesses from entering the market.
The report is a follow-up to a separate study on food price inflation by the Agriculture Committee, completed in June 2023.
The committee called on the government to submit a comprehensive response to the report and its recommendations.
