As Canadians are expected to pay $700 extra on their groceries, Liberals continue to delay tackling corporate greed

Under the Liberals, CEOs are getting richer while everyone else has to pay more

OTTAWA – On Thursday, after two years of delays from the Liberals, New Democrats summoned Galen Weston, the CEO of Loblaw’s parent company to answer to Canadians about high groceries prices. The NDP is holding Weston accountable to Canadians by demanding answers about the massive profits grocery CEOs are making and the impact the Liberal Minister of Industry’s meeting with grocery giants had on ‘stabilizing’ food prices.

Weston’s appearance before committee comes as new reporting shows that the average costs of groceries for a family of four is expected to go up by $700 next year – when these families are already paying more than $16,200 for their groceries.

“Canadian families are doing everything they possibly can to keep up with food prices, but still they’re going up. At the same time, Loblaw CEO Galen Weston thinks his close to 12 million-dollar compensation is reasonable, when his own employees are turning to food banks to eat. It’s not fair,” said Canada’s NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. “It’s clearer than ever that the Liberals tactic of asking CEOs nicely to lower food prices isn’t working, and that the Conservatives don’t want to touch these CEOs’ massive profits. Of course the CEOs getting richer off food prices don’t want more power for the competition bureau or more regulations to make sure prices are fair for Canadians—It’s on the government to look out for the people they were elected to serve.

“Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are out-of-touch with the realities of Canadians so they’re delaying action while Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives only want to give handouts the CEOs who are using food inflation as an excuse to raise prices even high to get richer.”

Outside of bringing the grocery CEOs to committee to answer to Canadians, the NDP fought to get measures into the fall economic statement that would lower food prices and give the Competition Bureau more room to put an end to this out-of-control corporate greed. These measures include more power for the Competition Bureau to crack down on price-gouging and price-fixing and gives further powers to the Canada's Competition Commissioner to keep markets competitive for small-businesses.

“More Canadians than ever before are going to food banks and yet the Liberals don’t seem too concerned by it, or they’d be standing up to the rich grocery CEOs who’ve been jacking up prices for months,” said NDP Food Price Inflation critic Alistair MacGregor. “And the corporate-controlled Conservatives have even said they don’t have a problem with these CEOs profits, or how they’re earning them – Pierre Poilievre even gave away $55 billion in tax cuts to CEOs when he was a minister, he’s not going to make CEOs pay their fair share.”

“Only New Democrats are focused on real solutions for you and your family. With the NDP you have someone who’s in your corner, fighting to bring down food costs and tackle the unchecked corporate greed.”