House of Commons’ ag committee makes 10 recommendations to address food price volatility (2024)

MPs on the House of Commons’ agriculture committee have published a list of recommendations for the federal government to tackle the issue of food price volatility after studying the topic over the past six months.

The committee heard from a long list of witnesses, including executives from Loblaws, Metro, Sobeys-owner Empire, Walmart Canada and Costco, as well as representatives from the farm and processing sectors, academics, federal officials, and Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Francois-Philippe Champagne.

In the report, entitled “A Call to Action: How Government and Industry Can Fight Back Against Food Price Volatility,” the ag committee recommends the government pass the version of Bill C-234 that would remove the federal carbon tax from propane and natural gas used on farms, several measures aimed at boosting competition, implementation of Grocery Code of Conduct, and policies to address “excessive net profits” in monopolistic and oligopolistic sectors in the food chain, including in farm inputs.

Here are the 10 recommendations:

1. Temporary foreign workers

The Committee, noting the particular importance of temporary foreign workers to the agriculture and agri-food sectors, recommends that the Government of Canada reduce the administrative burden associated with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and make permanent the Recognized Employer Pilot program that was put in place in Budget2022.

2. Border inspection and quality standards

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada increase staffing and the regularity of inspections at the border to ensure compliance, and that the government require that imported products meet the same quality standards – including environmental, labour, and growing standards – as domestic products, while ensuring it respects its trade obligations.

3. Bill C-234

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada support the passage of Bill C-234 unamended, as adopted by this committee.

4. Labelling regulations

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada review its front-of-package labelling regulations to better balance its public health objectives with industry concerns over the cost of complying within the proposed timelines and the effect this will have on consumer food prices.

5. Plastic food packaging

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada work with industry to ensure that there are commercially available and affordable alternatives to Price Look-up (PLU) stickers and other primary plastic food packaging items before it implements its proposed pollution preventing planning notice.

6. Food insecurity

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada take the following actions to assist Canadians experiencing food insecurity:

– review the Nutrition North Program to ensure that it is meeting its mandate of providing affordable food to residents and that subsidies to retailers are being used appropriately; and
– re-evaluate the objectives of its 2017 Food Policy for Canada 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 in order to discuss the enactment of legislation applying the Grocery Code of Conduct while respecting their jurisdictions.

8. Excessive net profits

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada consider implementing policies to effectively tackle excessive net profits in monopolistic and oligopolistic sectors in the food supply chain, which are driving up food prices for consumers and input costs forfarmers.

9. Legislativechanges

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada reinforce the competition law by making the following legislativechanges:

– enact structural presumptions to simplify merger cases by shifting the burden onto the merging parties to prove why a merger that significantly increases concentration would not substantially lessen or prevent competition;
– revisit the remedy standard to provide that the Competition Tribunal’s remedial order ensures that remedies preserve the pre-merger state of competition to prevent merging parties to accumulate market power and harm the economy;
– examine the rules surrounding Competition Tribunal decisions, to ensure better alignment with the Competition Bureau’s merger recommendations; and
– empower the Competition Tribunal to make an order dissolving a completed merger or prohibiting the merger from proceeding if the merger would result in excessive combined market share.

10. Increasing grocery sector competition

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada continue to pursue and advocate for additional competition within the Canadian grocery sector to stabilize and lower food prices, notably by identifying and removing barriers that prevent new companies from entering the marketplace.

The report is a follow-up to a separate study by the ag committee on food price inflation that was completed in June 2023.

The committee has asked the government to table a comprehensive response to the report and its recommendations.