Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Calgary Centre for the intervention and for his concern with respect to some of these matters. I am happy to respond with some of the actions our government is taking to stabilize food prices and help Canadians with the cost of living.

We recognize that food affordability continues to be a critical issue that all Canadians are faced with. The hon. member across cited some statistics and some trends. We know that food inflation was a global phenomenon during and after the pandemic, but happily, price increases have slowed considerably. Food inflation for groceries has fallen from a peak of 11.4% in January 2023 to under 3.5%, as the the hon. member cited, in August 2025.

The hon. member talked about good economic policies and spending. Actually, we agree that the government does have an important role in creating good economic policies to help address some of these challenges. That has to do with promoting competition, primarily in the portfolio that I assist the Minister of Industry with, and some related policies to help those who are most in need.

First is targeted spending that actually reaches the people who need it so they can get the food they need. I cannot help but mention the national school food program, which will put $1 billion over five years into programs and projects that will provide meals for up to 400,000 more kids per year. Unfortunately, the party opposite voted against that measure, but we think it is an important measure that is helping many people in our communities.

More generally, increased consumer choice with increased competition in the grocery sector is a key, and I would even say the key, to improving food affordability. That is why in recent years, we have modernized the Competition Act in Parliament.

A number of members from all parties have just come back from an industry committee meeting where we heard from competition commissioner Matthew Boswell. When we asked him how the changes to the act are helping him promote competition, he essentially asked in return how much time we had. He has a long list of measures that he is already implementing with the supports and resources given by the government to help the bureau do its job, in part to help tame food prices. For instance, changes to the act have required vendors to be more truthful in their advertising, recognizing that showing prices without all mandatory fees is a form of dishonesty. This practice of drip pricing makes it harder for consumers to do price comparisons to find the best value. It also penalizes the vendors that are most up front with how much things cost. We know that in this era of limited attention, those kinds of sleight-of-hand pieces divert people from finding the best options. We have also made amendments that affect how the Competition Bureau can investigate anti-competitive conduct and deceptive marketing.

A strong Competition Bureau and good competition policy help consumers. It is as simple as that. However, we have work to do with the players in our grocery sector. Our engagement with industry has been focused on ensuring the continuous improvement of food affordability. After many years of collaboration with provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture and a lot of industry engagement, lots of which we talked about in this House in the previous parliament, we were pleased that in July 2024, all of the large grocery retailers committed to the grocery sector code of conduct. The code is a positive step toward uniting supply chain partners to operate under a set of ground rules and bring more fairness, transparency and predictability to Canada's grocery supply chain and to consumers.

We are working hand in hand with industry and partners to continue to ensure food price stability, including with the measures that my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, mentioned. We will continue to take concrete actions to ensure Canadians pay fair prices for groceries.

Karim Bardeesy

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Adjournment Proceedings

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