Ottawa-Consumers are still feeling the pinch of food price inflation even with the creation of the Grocery Code of Conduct, which means more competition is needed at the retail level, says B.C. MP Alistair MacGregor, the NDP food price critic.

While the rate of inflation has eased in recent months, “a lot of Canadians are still feeling the pinch,” he told the Commons agriculture committee. MacGregor, who is the NDP caucus chair, was the party’s agriculture for many years after first being elected in 2015.

While the Competition Bureau has been given more authority to deal with the issue and an industry-led code of conduct is in place, the middle of the food supply system “is harming both our producers and consumers—we still have a severely concentrated marketplace in grocery retail.”

He has introduced a bill to bring some transparency to how pricing is done, “but also to try to get more food co-operatives set up in Canada so that we can provide some honest competition to the big grocery giants.”

He urged Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay to advocate in cabinet for a greater effort to deal with the problem. “It's not like it's new. Canadians have been suffering through this for several years now.”

MacAulay agreed food prices are a big issue and the increases “have adjusted somewhat, but not enough.” The Competition Bureau has acted to create more competition, which “is the spice of business—it brings everybody to a reality, and I would be very strong on that.”

MacGregor said the government could at least offer some legislative proposals for boosting competition in the grocery sector.

MacAulay said the code is industry-led, with some assistance from government, and its main role will be to make grocery price setting fairer and more visible as to what takes place. “You hear from the gate to the plate. There's no problem at the gate but before it gets to the plate, yes, there is a problem.”

MacGregor also called on the minister to find ways to make the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Policy more responsive to the needs of farmers and to act on a proposal from the National Farmers Union to create a Canadian farm resilience agency that would enable Agriculture Canada to work better on climate adaptation.

The government’s on-farm climate action fund did a lot of contracting out to third party organizations rather than build in-house capacity, he said. “Are you going to treat this matter with the seriousness that it deserves and try to actually build that in-house capacity rather than fall prey to what the federal government usually does, which is contract that out and lose that important knowledge that we could have in-house with our great public servants?”

MacAulay said he was aware of the need for action but could not say what might happen. “We want to make sure that the funds go to where they should go. That is what we want to make sure they do.”

This news report prepared for National Newswatch