Senator Cardozo: Ministers, thank you so much for being here. I encourage you to spend more time with senators, whether it’s in formal settings — like this — or informally. I think we can gain a lot more through two-way communication. I have two quick questions: Minister Champagne, you have met with grocery store CEOs. Can you tell us what you expect of them in order to give people a break? And would you consider price regulation for, say, a basic basket of groceries? Minister Freeland, at this time, are you looking at converting office buildings into rental housing?

Mr. Champagne: I will start. Thank you, senator, for saying that. I expect more from them, and I hope they are watching today. When I called them to Ottawa, I think it was a historic moment: I’m told that never in recent history were the top five grocers in the country — Sobeys, Loblaws, Metro, Walmart and Costco — called.

What I did at that time, senators — I hope you are behind me — was express the frustration of millions of Canadians who, on a weekly basis, have to buy groceries. I told them that we expect more from them. We understand it is a complex supply chain; everyone understands that. But we also expect them to give Canadians a break. We said that they need to be with us on the journey to stabilizing food prices in Canada. We said — at the time — that there would be a number of measures, and we expected them to present things to Canadians. Some of them have been doing it.

We said that one of the key pillars of our action plan is the grocery code of conduct, which you have seen, and it has been two years in the making in order to provide more transparency and better equilibrium between the smaller-sized and medium-sized producers and the large grocers. When I talked to the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, which represents about 5,000 small grocers, they said that the most meaningful thing in Bill C-56 — including everything in the bill that Minister Freeland talked about — is the reform of competition. From the mid-term to the long term, we know that is the best way to provide price stability in the country and better prices for Canadians. We will continue with that. This is far from being mission accomplished. We will continue to push them.

I think this will give us the tools to continue to put pressure on them, and for them to deliver the price stability that Minister Freeland was talking about. Canadians feel it every week. We need to be there for them. At the same time, you may have seen in the paper today that I’ve been talking to international grocers to see if they will enter the Canadian market that so we can have more competition and, in turn, have the effect on prices that we want to see.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Minister. We have to move to our next block of questions.

Ms. Freeland: That’s a good idea.

Mr. Champagne: I was —

The Chair: Ministers, I’m sorry, but we are moving to the next block of 10 minutes.