The federal government will be taking five measures that mean food prices should stabilize “soon,” Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced in Ottawa Thursday.
While the minister said the changes will appear in “days or weeks,” he did not provide specific dates and faced questions from reporters about how some of these actions differ from what is already in place to lower food costs.
Champagne made the announcement in a news conference alongside Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Housing Minister Sean Fraser. He said the actions will create “a much needed more competitive marketplace.”
Champagne said Thursday that initial commitments have been secured by Canada’s top five grocers, putting into motion the government’s first action.
The first commitment will see grocers provide “aggressive” discounts across a basket of key food products, price freezes and price matching campaigns.
“If we don’t see results, we will take additional action to restore the food price stability that Canadians expect,” a news release from the minister’s office said.
Last month, the Liberal government called on Canada’s major grocers to present a plan to stabilize prices by Thanksgiving, or face consequences. The top grocer executives pledged to “support” the Liberal government’s efforts to keep prices in check.
The government’s second action is to enhance the capacity of the Office of Consumer Affairs by establishing the Grocery Task Force — a form of consumer advocacy team. Its priorities will be to monitor grocers’ commitments and actions by other key players in the food industry, as well as “investigate and uncover practices that hurt consumers, such as ‘shrinkflation’ and ‘dequaliflation,’” the release said.
Third, the government will establish a Grocery Code of Conduct that it says will support fairness and transparency across the industry, and “contribute to improving the strength and resilience of Canada’s supply chain,” the release said.
The fourth action involves improving the accessibility and availability of data on food prices. Champagne says the move will help “small players.”
“There is an imbalance when you negotiate as a small and medium sized producer if you want to sell to the big grocery chain in Canada,” Champagne said.
“This is going to be a step forward as well to help the smaller producers to somehow have a bit more equity in the negotiation when they’re negotiating prices with the large grocery chain,” he said.
The fifth action promises to modernize the legislative framework of the Competition Act, which is already proposed in Bill C-56. Champagne said in his announcement that competition is integral for Canadians to get more value from their money.
“When there’s more competition, Canadians have more options and better pricing,” he said.
“Look at any jurisdiction. The best way to stabilize prices is more competition. I think that’s what we have created and are going to be monitoring.”
Champagne said the five measures are only initial steps to stabilizing food prices, and “nothing is off the table.”
“We are obviously open to doing more. This is not, by any way, mission accomplished. This is… a work in progress. We’re going to be at that every single day for the next few months,” he said.