Mr. Speaker, let us be clear about what is happening in this country right now. Canadian families are making impossible choices at grocery stores. Parents are skipping meals so their children can eat. Seniors on fixed income are choosing between food and medication. Food banks usage has reached historic highs, and people using them are not just unemployed Canadians. They are working people, people with jobs who still cannot afford to feed their family.
Meanwhile, Canada's grocery giants have posted record profits. Billions of dollars are flowing to shareholders and executives, while ordinary Canadians struggle to put food on the table. This is not a supply chain problem anymore. This is a greed problem. Increasingly, it is also about a transparency problem, because new technologies are making pricing even more opaque and harder for Canadians to trust. Bill C-226, the national framework for food price transparency act, is one step, a modest but necessary step, toward restoring fairness and transparency in our grocery sector.
I want to acknowledge and thank the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells for bringing the bill forward in the current Parliament. I also want to thank my former colleague Alistair MacGregor, the former member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, as Bill C-226 is a carbon copy of Bill C-406, which was introduced by Alistair because the NDP wanted legislation to establish a national framework to improve food price transparency through standardized unit pricing and public awareness for consumers about shrinkflation practices.
Right now, grocery pricing in Canada operates like a black box. Prices go up, and Canadians are told it is because of inflation, supply costs or global pressures, but when those input costs come down, do prices follow? They rarely do, and consumers have no way to verify what they are being told. Anyone who has tried to compare products at the grocery store knows the shell game that is being played. Is a 750-gram box a better deal than the 1.2‑kilogram bag? Is the sale price actually a saving, or has the package quietly shrunk? Shrinkflation is real. Canadians are paying the same or more for less product, and without clear unit pricing, it is nearly impossible to catch.
The bill would establish national standards for unit pricing displays, making them accurate, usable and accessible. That means clear, consistent labelling that lets a working parent on a tight budget quickly identify the best value. It means accessibility for seniors, for people with disabilities and for anyone who deserves to shop with dignity and clarity. This is consumer protection 101, and frankly it is long overdue in Canada. Many European countries and Australian states have had mandatory unit pricing for years. We are playing catch-up.
Food affordability is a national crisis that requires a national response, and the framework would create a structure for that collaboration. In addition to addressing pricing transparency, there is also a new and deeply troubling layer being added to this lack of transparency: surveillance pricing. Retailers are increasingly able to use personal data, such as person's postal code, their purchase history and even their online behaviour, to estimate what they might be willing to pay, and to adjust prices accordingly.
This means that two people could buy exactly the same product at exactly the same store and pay different prices, not because of a sale and not because of cost differences but because an algorithm has decided that one of them can be charged more. This undermines a basic assumption Canadians have always relied on: that the price on the shelf is the price everyone pays. It also makes comparison shopping nearly impossible. If prices are being personalized behind the scenes, how can Canadians make informed choices? How can markets function fairly when the rules are hidden?
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has already raised concerns, noting that these systems are beginning to roll out in real time with little transparency and no accountability. We know who will be most affected: seniors on fixed income, working families, people in rural and underserved communities, and anyone an algorithm determines has fewer options. That is not a fair market. That is digital age price gouging.
Surveillance pricing needs to be banned in Canada. Our leader, Avi Lewis, has called for clear guardrails to ensure that personal data is not used to squeeze more money out of the pockets of people who are already stretched thin. In Canada we are already seeing leadership in Manitoba on this under Premier Wab Kinew, who has taken steps to ban surveillance pricing practices outright, recognizing the risks they pose to consumers. Innovation should serve people, not exploit them. It is about setting boundaries. The Liberals should bring in a national initiative to ban surveillance pricing from coast to coast to coast.
Meanwhile, Bill C-226 would address part of the broader problem by requiring transparency on price increases, adjustments and fluctuations. This is not about the government's setting prices. It is about ensuring that Canadians have the information they need to make informed decisions and to hold corporations accountable. When grocery chains know their pricing practices will be scrutinized, when they know Canadians can see when and why prices change, they will think twice before padding their margins on the backs of struggling families.
Would the bill single-handedly solve the affordability crisis? No, it would not. New Democrats have called for much bolder action: excess profit taxes on grocery giants, stronger competition enforcement, measures to break up corporate concentration in the food supply chain and a public option for groceries such as what Avi Lewis has long argued for. However, the bill is a beginning. It would give Canadians tools and information. It would establish the principle that transparency is non-negotiable in our grocery sector, especially as pricing practices become more complex and less visible. We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can pass the legislation while continuing to fight for deeper structural reforms.
This comes down to a simple question: Whose side are we on? Are we on the side of grocery executives and shareholders, who have enriched themselves during a cost of living crisis, or are we on the side of the single mother comparing prices at 10 p.m. after her shift, the pensioner stretched thin on a fixed income and the family choosing between groceries and rent?
Canadians deserve to know that the price on the tag is the price that everyone pays, not a number quietly adjusted based on their personal data. Bill C-226 is a vote for transparency, a vote for fairness and a vote for Canadian families. New Democrats will be supporting the bill, and we urge all members of the House to do the same.
