Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne says he is working hard to try to rein in high grocery prices, even though there will be no windfall tax for traders in the 2024 budget after previous threats to impose fiscal measures if prices were not controlled.
In an interview in The west blockChampagne told host Mercedes Stephenson that he still believes competition remains the best way to control food prices.
“We have too much concentration when it comes to the country’s grocers,” Champagne said.
In recent months, Champagne says it has been courting foreign grocers to enter the Canadian market.
It says it will make announcements once deals are closed, but an anonymous American grocer pointed out a major obstacle to entering the northern market.
“I met one of them in the United States and the biggest obstacle they had was the issue of leases. They couldn’t find 400 or 500 leases or rental properties in the country even though they are very large, billions of dollars,” Champagne said.
“So, is it easy? No. Is it worth trying? Definitely.”
As part of the autumn 2023 economic statement, the government introduced reforms to the Competition Act focusing on supermarkets. The most important among them is to give the Competition Bureau the power to subpoena companies to collect information from companies such as grocers as part of market studies and to make it illegal for grocery companies to prevent independent stores from setting up shop in the same commercial building.
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In his interview in The west blockChampagne hinted that these reforms are making American grocers look again at Canada.
On Thursday, Champagne participated in a “historic” announcement in Alliston, Ont., with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Honda executives about the Japanese automaker’s $15 billion investment in the production of electric vehicles.
The plan includes retrofitting Honda’s existing plant in Alliston to make purely electric vehicles and building a nearby battery production plant and two battery parts manufacturing facilities elsewhere in Ontario.
“It’s sending a signal to the world that we have the best workers in the world, that the place to invest is Canada, because we now have the entire supply chain when it comes to batteries and electric vehicles. Honestly, today we really changed the rules of the game. “It’s historic,” Champagne said.
Work to modernize the Alliston Honda plant is expected to be completed in 2028, with an annual production target of 240,000 electric vehicles per year.
The federal government has a goal for all new consumer vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission by 2035.
When asked if the government is doing enough to build infrastructure to power and charge all of these electric vehicles, Champagne focused more on vehicle production, but said more needs to be done.
“Well, let’s do more. And this is great because when you have an investment like that it is kind of a catalyst,” Champagne said.
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