While Trudeau and Poilievre protect CEOs profits, Jagmeet Singh wants to lower food prices

EDMONTON – On Friday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh stood with local MPs Heather McPherson (Edmonton-Strathcona) and Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton- Griesbach) to urge the government to support his plan to bring down food prices by going after corporate greed. They were joined by Trisha Estabrooks, a long-time school board trustee, who’ll be running as a New Democrat in the next federal election.

Singh’s bill – Lowering Prices for Canadians Act - increase fines for price-fixing, price-gouging and other abuses of Canadian consumers, gives more power to the competition bureau to go after those abuses, and better protects smaller and independent grocery stores against anti-competitive behavior from the big chains.

“Food bank use has reached the highest level in Canadian history. Here in Edmonton – a record number of working people are using food banks because their salary isn’t keeping up with their expenses. People need help,” said Singh. “Trudeau’s out-of-touch Liberals are telling people to look at the flyers if they want lower prices. And Pierre Poilievre’s corporate-controlled Conservatives refuse to go after CEOs and Big grocery chains because 50 per cent of their party’s governing body are lobbyists for greedy CEOs. That’s the problem with these two parties, they work for the CEOs.”

While families in Edmonton made difficult decisions about their grocery budgets, Canada’s three largest grocers—Loblaws, Sobeys, and Metro—collectively earned more than $3.6 billion in profits last year. Loblaw CEO, Galen Weston, was described as ‘underpaid’ while getting $11.79 million a year in salary – 431 times the average employee’s wage. New Democrats say that unchecked corporate greed driving up prices must end.

“We’ve seen over and over again that Liberals and Conservatives won’t crack down on the CEOs benefiting from price-gouging,” said Singh. “Poilievre pretends to side with workers and their families but he’s not who he says he is. He had his chance to take on corporate greed when he was in government, but instead he gave large chains like Loblaws billions in tax giveaways. New Democrats do things differently.

“We’re pushing the Liberals to pass this law to better protect Canadians and to put an excess profit tax on big grocers. The government can use that money to give Canadians another GST rebate to help them pay for their groceries.”

“I’m proud to stand with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP who are fighting for people in Edmonton,” said Estabrooks. “The Lowering Prices for Canadians Act that Jagmeet Singh has introduced will bring down food prices by going after corporate greed. Measures like these are going to make things fairer for hardworking people and families here in Edmonton.”